Hot chat: the plot of Diego Martínez’s short circuit with the Boca squad :: Olé

He had to intervene. The squad chat had become so revolutionized that it was Diego Martínez himself who had to respond. And explain why his PF had said that Mouth He was going to advance his return to practice to Tuesday, when they had met before the clash with Platense who would return to work on Wednesday. “Its my desicion. “We have to improve this,” He put the DT, without further ado. What followed was a breakdown in communication, a WhatsApp tension, which then It continued in person on Tuesday afternoon with the summit between the coach, the players and Juan Román Riquelme.

A few hours have passed since then, of course, but reflects the change in relationship that existed between the players and the coaching staff at this time. Questioning Martínez about the decision to change a training session for a day before (and in the afternoon) was like removing him from the group. And he exposes a lot of what was happening in Xeneize at this time and that ended up exploding on Sunday with the defeat, the expulsion of Rojo and the coach’s fury.

It is clear that the breaking episode was Benedetto’s birthday. And the behavior of several players who, the next day, because they had attended that celebration, were not in a position to train. The famous “Happy nights, sad mornings” It was a before and after for Pipa, but also for the relationship of some references with the coach who did not accept that Martínez made a bad face for the first time, with punishments for the nine, Briasco and Lema (drawn in a recovery detente magic) and a summit with captain Rojo, also present at the event but at that time without a chance to play due to being injured.

That’s why the coach got so angry with Rojo for his expulsion against Platense. Because of the way he left the team with ten after 35 minutes, yes, but also because he was already coming. Just him, who spoke so highly of the captain when he was out for 11 games! (“You try to get stuck with your head, it’s tremendous how contagious it is…”), He felt how the man with the ribbon turned his back on him, like Pipa and other grown-ups.

The change in relationship with the coaching staff occurred, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) from the moment that Martínez understood that because of that closeness and complicity that he sought to have with the players (“It has been a while since we had a coach who lives with the team, who talks to the one who is painted and with whom he plays all the games,” Benedetto had rightly said of him, believe or burst) They had taken his elbow by the hand. And that the lack of commitment was beginning to damage a cycle that was also collapsing in football, with results that were altering the established order.

For all this it is that Riquelme understood that he should be the one to prevail in this circumstance, with the weight of his name and the influence of his authority.. It was also a way to break with this internal climate and to prepare the team for what is to come, fundamentally, for the match against Almirante Brown for the round of 16 of the Argentine Cup that will be played just before the holidays.

In fact, Román understood that just as the team was coming along, with the coach having lost a certain authority in the locker room, and its consequent direct impact on the football performance (against Platense it clearly seemed like a game at the end of the cycle), Boca was on its way to also crashing one of its most direct passports to the 2025 Copa Libertadores.

From there, of course, the “We have time to reverse this,” that the president transmitted. And hand in hand with him, plus the apologies that Rojo rehearsed for his expulsion (first with Riquelme, the coaching staff and the players and then with Martínez and his teammates), the climate of tension began to decompress.

To make matters worse, this Wednesday the official Boca account made a private post, with an image of the coach and a legend that sounded like a joke: “The only recipe: work”. Two games are coming up that will mark the future of the team. And that, in some way, also includes Martínez…