Camila Martínez (Geneva, Switzerland, 2001), a member of the GEiEG Uni staff, will forever remember a Girona-Bembibre Spar with little history held last week in Fontajau. It was the day of her debut in the Women’s League, one of the goals for which she did not stop fighting until she had a chance to get to the city. “Before Alfred (Julbe) came in, he pinched my cheek. I guess he did it to tell me ‘I’m going to make your debut, believe me’, ‘he recalls. This winger of Spanish and Argentine descent explains that “playing with Uni Girona alongside Vasic or Palau is fulfilling your dream and making reality why you play basketball”. When he explains the milestone his eyes still light up. His family, from both Switzerland and Argentina, has lived it with “pride” and does not hide that after the comfortable victory against Bembibre “my phone was smoking”.
Learning surrounded by top level players is an honor. “Besides being great professionals, they are great people. Before they gave me a lot of encouragement and then they shook my hand or hugged me. Too bad the FIBA window (most of the squad left this week with their teams) but I would have liked to stay a little longer with them commenting on the match. It is nothing new, for Camila Martínez, to work with the first team because from the first days in Girona she combines training in Fontajau with Lluís Bach from Sant Narcís. In this last pavilion it is where it plays assiduously with the GEiEG Uni in Feminine Liga 2.
He joined the group last summer from Geneva in the Swiss First Division. It is a very curious story as Martínez, just before the March 2020 confinement, had contacted the club to propose the signing. “What I did was send a video with my higlights, that is, my best plays,” he recalls. Days before the decree of the State of Alarm, Martínez was able to train with Girona but due to the new restrictions caused by the pandemic and the Swiss league continued he had to pack his bags and return hastily to his city. However, the 19-year-old never lowered her arms and continued to insist. I wanted to come to Girona and compete in the Spanish league: “I was clear that my goal was to come here because the championship has a much higher level than in Switzerland. There, the first category is looser than here. I could say that it is between the Endesa League and the Women’s League 2 “, he comments. He adds that “I had to adapt because the game is different. Is everything here much faster, more dynamic? There the plays are chewed a lot and the possession is allowed to run almost to the end. However, now I can say that my adaptation process is over.
The first season of Switzerland under the orders of Joan Pau Torralba values it positively despite the fact that GEiEG Uni moves to the bottom of the league and on Sunday has a momentous match on the court of Andratx, cuer. Martínez recalls that “lately we have played against high-level teams such as Barça, Sant Adrià and Lima Horta. I am completely convinced that we will take the situation forward and save ourselves. We have envelope level to do it. Also, and I think it’s one of the most important factors in the world of sports, we’re a pineapple. We all get along very well.
He embarked on his new adventure in Girona alone. Martinez left his whole family in Switzerland to make a dream come true and continue to progress in basketball. “It wasn’t hard for me to do that. When you want something you have to make decisions. What I wanted from the first moment was to come and play here. Leaving my family in Switzerland in these circumstances becomes easier. Also coming to a city like Girona instead of Barcelona is much better. Here you can go anywhere on foot or by bike “, says the winger, who started in the world of sport playing volleyball, like his father. In fact, Camila’s bond with sport comes almost from the moment she was born. His whole family has practiced it. Her mother was a basketball player and her father, Guillermo Martinez, was member of the selection of Argentina in the Olympic Games of Iceland 1996 in the modality of volleyball. The thing does not end here, but Camila Martinez has a brother and a sister who are also looking for the door to triumph towards elite sport. His sister Stéphanie is currently a player in Barça’s junior basketball team, while his brother Matías is a member of the Swiss Under-21 team of FC Sion with whom he combines training with the first team in the Swiss First Division. . At the moment she is the only one who has already made her debut in the elite. And he did it in Fontajau.
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