Santi Maratea’s change of clothes: from “savior of Independiente” to footballer in an AFA club

In mid-2023, the name of Santiago Maratea bursts onto the football planet. More precisely, in the Independent world. The young 30-year-old influencer proposed a chimera: to raise 20 million dollars to pay off a series of debts that were inhibiting the club and preventing it from adding reinforcements to build the team.

Even though it did not reach the promised amount, the collection was a success and, at the end of October, the core of the project was concluded: Maratea collected over 3.5 million dollars, oxygen for the Rojo which Carlitos Tevez would later catch his breath.

It seems that Maratea has become passionate about football. And now he has taken another step: he has become a new footballer of one of the clubs recently affiliated to the AFA.

This is FC Ezeiza, a club that has a connection with Santi because they had already helped him with a collection.

In November last year, just as the collection of Independiente was coming to an end, Maratea began to go through a nervous breakdown which spread, causing a bad personal moment. Then he understood that the solution could be in football.

“Given the uncertainty, I joined a club to play football. It’s called Club Ezeiza. For which we made a collection and I met him for this reason. It was in the middle of the year and at the end of the year I was in that rather depressed moment in my life because I was going through a bad time and I didn’t know what to do. I went to a shaman and then said ‘I’m going to play football’,” he said when he made the decision.

Subsequently the club affiliated with the AFA, which will allow it to play in a new category: the Amateur Promotional Tournament, a new division already announced by the Argentine Football Federation. And Maratea was already on top of the boat…

The influencer will be part of Esteban Echeverría’s team to which he is united by a special affection. One of the fields of the sports center is even named after him due to the help he gave him during that period.

Maratea plays as a striker and says that his references are Suarez and Cavani. Even if for now the influencer is far from his references: “Match of nine, I haven’t scored a goal yet… I’ve overcome the shame of training and, little by little, I’m losing the shame of going to play.” Besides, I go there and people know me. The first time I played I wanted to die, but I said ‘enough, this is my challenge’,” he said at the start.

In the end the goal arrived and Santi celebrated it with everything. It was the 5-1 against Real Sociedad de Varela: he played with the number 18 shirt and scored in the victory. This is confirmed by the images on FC Ezeiza’s Instagram.

“I’m 31 and all these kids are in their 20s,” he admits. He also says that he doesn’t know where his roof will be.

Age is precisely one of the disadvantages that the influencer has. The fact is that the new Amateur Promotional Tournament only admits under 25s and Maratea already has 31. We will have to see if Ezeiza’s club obtains authorization or the influencer limits himself to accompanying as a sparring partner from training. The truth is that, after his time at Independiente, he can now afford the luxury of training day by day like any other footballer.

Maratea explained that this time he did not want to go further and, beyond the desire to continue to engage in the world of football, he avoided engaging in the managerial part: “There have been cases of communicators or famous people who got involved in football management”. club and in general it goes wrong, so I thought that going on the pitch changes everything, there is a difference, “he said. And that’s why he put on his boots.