The beginnings of Diego MartÃnez’s coaching career were marked by the success and good performance of his teams. Until his signing by Espanyol. The Galician coach, officially dismissed this Monday due to poor results, said goodbye at the Juan Segura Palomares Auditorium at the RCDE Stadium, intoning the mea culpa, assuming his responsibility, but remembering that they should have “resized the objectives”, specifically downwards. His place will be taken by Luis GarcÃa, who will be announced as the new blue and white coach in the next few hours.
“I’m leaving a project that filled me from the beginning. I’m sorry to leave it without having covered the entire path. I arrived with my backpack full of illusion. We haven’t finished the project and I’m sorry. I’m proud of the work of the coaching staff, the players and the support of the fans. It is an emotional victory. No one has let go of our hand. I will carry it in my heart. Being Espanyol’s coach is a gift. I say goodbye with sadness. It hurts. But I am leaving after having given everything. If anything The players have shown is that the star has been the team”, began his last speech as coach, perico el vigué, elegant and without reproach, in front of the bulk of the squad and the blue and white leaders, including the CEO, Mao Ye, and the sports director, Domingo Catoira.
“I can’t look at them because I get excited,” he continued, referring to the footballers present. The captains Darder, Cabrera, Joselu and Sergi Gómez were part of the representation of a team that was especially praised by the coach. “It is a luxury to have shared the path with these fantastic players, professionally and personally. I will always be grateful to them,” he said of a group, blurred on the field in recent games, who he sees as fully capable of redirecting the situation and achieve salvation in the last 11 days of the League. Espanyol could fall into the relegation zone if Valencia does not lose to Rayo this Monday.
Diego MartÃnez, who had one more year left on his contract, did not want to point out the controversial planning of the squad or the previous decisions of the club, “it was not relevant”, although he slipped that the team’s goals, closer to Europe than to the salvation, as the Spanish entity pointed out at the end of last season, did not conform to reality: “I have been consistent in my decisions. We knew the road would be hard, with difficulties. We were prepared for this. We also said that we had to resize the objectives of the project. I had to start from another point and more slowly. Even so, I assume my responsibility. We have not hidden ourselves. Until the end we have been convinced that we could move it forward. I respect the position of the club but I do not share it”.
He also highlighted that in his ten months at Cornellà there have been “hits” but “more mistakes” and that Espanyol’s delicate qualifying situation responds to the particular idiosyncrasies of the beautiful game. “In football there are times when things don’t work out. I think the team could have four or five more points doing the same thing. I remember specific moments throughout the year. But this sounds like something I don’t want. If I’m here it’s for assume my responsibility”, he insisted, in addition to pointing out that perhaps “the pressure” due to the bad results has weighed heavily in the last four games, with defeats in the last four.
“With the wind in their favor, these players would seem better. It would have helped to get the best version, to play with greater mental freshness. I would have liked to get more points at home”, added Diego MartÃnez who considers his time at the club an “honor”. the Spanish. “I am grateful to the fans, I have felt them very close. I am leaving with the strength of a sentiment that has penetrated deep into the bottom of my heart”, concluded the coach, visibly moved.
