Rodrigo Sayavedra, the footballer who gave the nickname “Gigoló” to Diego Martínez, says that they did group therapy at Estudiantes

Diego Martinez He settles down at the edge of the grass in one of the training fields of the Mapuche country, the place where in April 2022 he will coach Tigre, one of the leaders of the League Cup and who will reach the final of the tournament, in Cordoba. Just six months earlier he had won the Primera Nacional title against Barracas Central and promotion to the Professional League. At the celebrations, in the locker rooms, we hear: “It’s the Gigolo team”.

The nickname also made Martínez known, a fearless, offensive and very meticulous coach trained in the Barcelona project in Argentina: he has the DNA of the Catalan team. In that interview with Clarionweeks before losing against Boca in the final played at the Kempes, he admitted: “The nickname was given to me by the Estudiantes boys. It’s not something that bothers me, but it doesn’t fill me with pride either. They gave it to me he said when we got promoted, Rodrigo Sayavedra he put it on me; and he had to be around and these, while the players talk to each other and know each other, brought it to light in an important moment and it went viral. What they told me was left aside PeladitoHe Bare Martínez told me and now few people tell me like that and they moved on to the famous Gigolo“.

The nickname is due to the -alleged- physical resemblance of the coach with Javier Bazterrica, a scammer who attracted media attention in 2015 after being criminally sued by the sister of choreographer and producer Flavio Mendoza. And the one who found this similarity, according to Martínez himself, Boca’s brand new coachthe first of the management of Juan Román Riquelme as coach, is Sayavedra.

Left-footed midfielder, 28 years old, with a career in promotion (Argentino de Quilmes, Estudiantes, Miter de Santiago del Estero, Deportivo Morón, Brown de Adrogué and recent reinforcement of Racing de Córdoba), listens to the call and is ready to remember his times under the guidance of Diego Martínez, a coach who – he assures – improved him as a footballer and who “helped him a lot” for the group therapy sessions they had on the Pincha campus who achieved promotion to the Primera Nacional in 2019.

-It was you who gave him the nickname Gigolo…

-It was crazy, I think we went to play a game with Atlanta and we lost, we were all really sexy. Then we played Caseros and beat him, and at that time he had several nicknames: Shaggythat of Scooby Doo, Pelado, Pealdilla, had many nicknames. But after that match, with Emanuel Ibáñez we were there fucking and he told me ‘give it to him, tell it to him, tell it to him’; until well, he came into the locker room and I said to him: ‘Come on Gigolo, you’re happy now’and there it remained Gigolo. Right around that time Gigolo had started appearing on TV and in Instagram videos (by Bazterrica) and we started looking for him and I showed them to all the kids, and from then on everyone started calling him Gigolo and it stuck. .

-Did you like the nickname at first or didn’t you like it at first?

-Diego is a good person, he laughed and told me “Hey, black, how are you gonna tell me like that?”and well that’s where the Gigolo left him, but Diego is a very good person.

-What type of coach will Boca players find?

-More than a coach, he is another teammate who helps you a lot, who talks a lot with the players, who constantly sees mistakes and does things that help a lot. He’s not a bad person, but when he has to fart, he farts on you (SIC), but precisely because of something he perhaps saw on the pitch, something he doesn’t like. They are an excellent people.

-How has it improved you as a footballer?

-A lot of things. Technically, personally too. I come from a large family, I have 10 brothers, I live in a humble neighborhood. And he is always there, he asks you how you are, how the family is doing and this is very important to me and has also changed my way of thinking a lot. The human part. From a footballing point of view he is an excellent coach, which is why he is where he is today.

-Do you think that Martínez, having made his career in the promotion, now comes to Boca at an advantage?

-You learn a lot from promotion. You find everything, quality of people. With my colleagues I talk about life as if we lived together. You get to know the family, the people. You have many things in the promotion. For me it’s the most beautiful thing there is. What I think, since he is, he will treat everyone as an equal. It’s one more for the team. I wish you the greatest success. I will always thank him for all the years spent at Estudiantes, which was the best thing.

-Are you a better player after being coached by Martínez?

-Yes, yes, absolutely. I did an internship with them (through the technical staff) which completely changed my way of thinking. The truth is that she is a great person, as is her coaching staff. We did things we didn’t even imagine we would do. The archery teacher got us all together before the climb and we went to concentrate and he got us all together. He made us look at each other and tell each other things that we personally had from the past and it seemed like we were letting go of much more and inside the pitch we were, I don’t know, we were Milan or Barcelona. We said personal things to each other, something I didn’t like about him or another teammate: “Hey, crazy, I don’t like your attitude, I don’t like this behavior of yours.”, and so. And an excellent group was formed there and we really had a lot of fun.

-Saying things to each other’s faces…

-Of course, and so with everyone. Me with the whole team and all my teammates. And in the last match in which we were promoted we did the same. They gave some lessons so that we could free ourselves and we try to be the same inside the playing field as outside. Let’s enjoy it directly.

-Like group therapy.

–A therapy, indeed. We did therapy, it was amazing. This helped me a lot. I’m very closed and I don’t speak much, but when I see the trust of a teammate and I know that he will keep what I tell him, then when we entered the field, we freed ourselves.