Diego Martínez, with an open heart: managing Boca at 45, his obsession with the nights and the concern of his sisters

“Once talking to Gaby Heinze, she recommended the Queen’s Gambit series to me. When I watched it, I saw the girl, Crack, who saw the chess pieces when she went to bed. I told the guys The best pacifier is to imagine the workout I will do the next day: the tasks, the rotations, how to make changes, the game plan. “I’m going to sleep thinking about it.”

Speaking is Diego Martínez, the man who lives a dream. At the age of 45, after a comeback from the bottom, he becomes the technical director of Boca. And his dream is that of millions of people whose hearts beat to the rhythm of the Bombonera. And that dream awakens illusions, of course. But the man who began his coaching career in Ituzaingó shows he has his feet on the ground. And live this moment with caution, responsibly taking on the great challenge that awaits us.

“Sometimes I take my notebook next to my bed in case an idea comes to me and I write it down,” he confesses. And she reveals her sisters’ concern: “I sleep little, yes. My sisters (he is the youngest in a family with two sisters older than him) are worried because I sleep too little,” she said. And immediately he confessed another intimacy.”

“The biggest challenge I have is management and results, not that they are happy because it is difficult for someone who doesn’t play, but that they at least know and understand that they are decisions thinking about the best for the team. Even if I’m wrong, “he declared naturally of his work in a passage of the interview given to La Oral Deportiva, on Radio Rivadavia.

Martínez was calm and happy for the beautiful victory that his Boca achieved against Belgrano on Sunday evening at the Bombonera. It’s just that little by little he’s starting to settle in, after a bumpy start. Perhaps the draw achieved at the Monumental on 25 February against River, after losing, could have meant a turning point.

“I dreamed a lot about a night like the one we spent with Belgrano. We spoke with the boys to confirm the good feelings we have as a team and it was important. “It’s about recovering, about continuing to believe, about the joy that Edi (Cavani) has become, about how people pushed us and why I think the team also passed it on to people,” he said.

And regarding the growth he sees in the team, the former Huracán and Tigre coach has no doubts: “We deserve to have more pointsI think we paid with goals and negative results that in another match or that another team doesn’t end up paying for. “I understand that there were moments of good play, of dominance, which represent us, but we still have a lot to grow.”

Compared to Cavani, it is also new for Martínez to manage a star of the Uruguayan’s brilliance. But Gigoló is strong in underlining: “It is very important for us as a technical staff, it requires us to improve and that the standard after that is to treat everyone as we treat Cavani, but also with Sergio (Romero) or Marcos (Rojo). We have the obligation to respect them and this helps us grow”.

Immediately, with a short anecdote, he once again measured how much awareness he has of the place he has come to occupy after his journey through all the categories of Argentine football. “The day we started training, I imagined what the conversation with a team like Boca would be like, just as I had visualized that first contact with the Ituzaingó players. But this time It was different, because it was very strong to look up and see Edi, Sergio, Marcos…“.

What follows, hypothesized by the protagonist himself, is very descriptive. “You try to have a map of what you want to say, but at that moment everything got confused and I don’t remember what we talked about. That’s why I then asked the guys on the technical staff if I hadn’t said anything stupid,” he confessed, laughing.

And the conversation returns to the past. To those debuts in the First D. “Of course I always look back. My journey makes me proud, I talk about it with my family, with my children who are trying to become footballers, with my wife who accompanies me” in every thing, “I see when I meet the coaches of the promotion that they tell me that they see us as a mirror. But this does not stop, it is a journey”, said Martínez, the man who in a decade has emerged from the mud of the promotion onto the carpet blue and gold and will try to give him a Boca game identity.

La Boca de Martínez by Martínez himself

As for the names of the Boca team, in addition to repeatedly praising the experts, he took the time and words of praise to highlight several players in the team, starting with Kevin Zenón, that reinforcement he had in his sights since his first debut chat with Juan Román Riquelme and who got involved very quickly in the team and also in the people of Boca.

“We knew that Kevin was a player who felt the game in our way. We had faced him and felt that he was a versatile player, who participates in all phases of the game, who has intensity and who leaves the team in offensive positions. And the main thing is that he is very good as a footballer.“he highlighted.

He immediately referred to his team’s latest revelation: the youngster Jabes Saralegui, who he had already spoken about in his first contact with the press after his arrival at the club. “I didn’t know him when he was young, he arrived later. He gave me good feelings ever since I saw him, he’s one of those old midfielders, like we used to play, that traditional midfielder of the 4-3-1-2. That eight who can give you play, breaks, goals, freshness…”, he commented.

In this sense, regarding the influence that external opinions can have on his decisions (with the example of the situation that Frank Fabra is going through), the DT was blunt: “We try to be genuine with what we say and practice. As for the outside, I try not to be silly, to be selective with what I consume or listen to. Because at Boca there are many opinions and sometimes many things can create confusion, so I try to keep a fresh head.”

It is clearly an experience in every sense to manage Boca for Diego Martínez. And this is how DT experiences it, thinks about it and analyzes it. That he will have to continue to submit to popular judgment in every match, and he knows it. But with that clarity in seeing it, at least you can more easily absorb what you have to experience.