“In today’s talk (on Sunday, before going to the stadium) we talked about how throughout the championship we had three things that are very important to us and that allowed us to win games: the hierarchy of these footballers is one, the game that we seek to grow every day has made us win games by having control and, later, personality and heart. “Today, to beat River, we had to have all three.”
Diego Martínez is energetic. If he doesn’t speak and indicate, he walks. If you don’t walk, think and execute. But if the match ends, even though it is a superclassic eliminatory in which they emerged victorious (3-2) and that allows them to play the semi-final of the League Cup, it is filled with coldness, calm and reflections like someone who analyzes from the chair at home. He is clear about each point and conveys it with conviction. Because he saw it before, he put it into practice during and explained it later. Boca responds and puts it up to par with what is required.
In his first seconds sitting in the chair of his press conference he had already highlighted one of the points that, evidently, had already become a strength for his team: “The boys always show their faces. “They recovered from being at a disadvantage again”, the xeneize coach emphasized in his analysis. Sometimes, it is not easy for a team to refocus after the two situations that Boca went through: starting the superclásico well, pressing and controlling the ball, but – suddenly – losing it in attack and not being able to stop a lethal counterattack that ended in Sergio Romero’s network after Miguel Borja’s definition. Start again being even clearer, but in a context of disadvantage and a classic eliminator.
His men did it again. They put the ball on the grass and played. They resolved. They converted: Miguel Merentiel would score the tie a few seconds before the end of the first period, Edinson Cavani would score the goal that the blue and gold world was waiting for and reversed the result in the second half and “The Beast” once again scored on the scoreboard by stretching the advantage that was only altered by the discount on Paulo Díaz’s time. Martínez’s Boca did not even have time for scares: they already felt like winners and they were.
It was not another classic, of course, but – seen from another perspective – it is worth adding it to the count. In this short-lived cycle carried out by the current coach, Córdoba was the fourth match against a great team. In all of them he recovered. The first was, precisely, River, but in the Monumental: it also started down in the result due to Pablo Solari’s goal just after the second half began, but midway through it, Cristian Medina appeared to equal it. “The one on the River court was the one we played the best, more than today, I think”he sentenced this Sunday from Córdoba.
That was a huge test to see what position he decided to take, after years in which Boca – in fact, its technicians – thought more about protecting himself than hurting. Martínez chose the path of asserting himself, as he likes in the blue and gold world. Racing immediately appeared, a spicy match of these years: it started with an advantage due to a bomb by Lucas Blondel, but in the Bombonera they turned it around and put it in trouble, something from which it escaped with three goals (one against, another from Cavani and the final 4-2 by Nicolás Valentini) in the second period. San Lorenzo was the other victim, also in Brandsen 805, for starting out winning with Adam Bareiro’s penalty and ending up losing with the contributions of the Uruguayans who screamed in the quarterfinals this Sunday.
“We don’t get any medals for turning games around. We want work. We are very clear about the direction of what we want, but we build it with the players, with the people who are in the club day to day, with the leaders and the people”did not want to take responsibility solely for those comfortable situations and efforts.
“With a lot of personality, we took the game forward. The boys showed that they have a big heart. This is not achieved very often today. We want to grow, we look at ourselves day by day, we want to go for more. We are hungry”, He delved into the character of the team, in addition to highlighting the reasons for the (few) hours of enjoyment: “Any boy among us dreamed of being in this classic, a final. You have to enjoy such a match, to be able to move on to the final stage. To turn around another result and in a superclásico, against a team that has a similar game model and is our rival. Tomorrow (Monday) we already have the obligation to think about Fortaleza to compete in the Copa Sudamericana and, over time, we will think about Estudiantes.”
The best of Boca’s victory
After recognizing that he had to modify on the fly, but implementing something previously thought (“We had two game plans: rhombus against rhombus or aligning ourselves more and having Pol close with “Equi.” We adjusted with that last one”), he referred to the illusion of the fans in the face of similar triumphs: “Sometimes I am not very aware and I think it is better. This doesn’t stop, it doesn’t stop. What we want to build does not give us time to allow ourselves to realize the magnitude of what it means.For example, today’s victory. You feel it when you are on the street, that sense of identity that people give back to us. If you can identify with it, we are delighted. It is a group that won many things and wants to continue winning. If we manage to transmit it outwards, we generate a very nice symbiosis.”
However, he closed with a very clear understanding of where he places what he experienced this Sunday in his life: “Perhaps, I put this classification on the podium of my career as a coach. The promotion with Estudiantes de Caseros, something unique (2019). The promotion with Tigre and the first division campaign as well (2021-2022). I put this with those joys that we experience as CT. I hope they ask me the same question in a short time and I have to say that this classic was useful for something else.”
Diego Martínez, that executioner from River who now, on the xeneize path, makes him suffer more. He had already beaten him in the Monumental by Tigre (he eliminated him in 2022 in the same contest and instance) and by Huracán (he beat him 2-1 at the end of last year). Although in Córdoba, everything was more special.