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Diego Martínez and the ‘déjà vu’ of Pep Guardiola’s first summer at Barça

BarcelonaIn the summer of 2008, Pep Guardiola landed on the Barça bench with the difficult challenge of bringing order to an affluent squad that had acquired certain vices. The coach of Santpedor did not hesitate to tell some of the heavyweights of the squad that they could not continue at the club. Ronaldinho and Deco left and Eto’o would do so a year later. Three players who had marked a stage at the Camp Nou left through the back door for the good of the group.

14 years later, Diego Martínez has landed at Espanyol with a similar mission: to establish a new cycle that will allow the white-and-blue club to soar. The Galician will start this Saturday, in his native Vigo (5 p.m., DAZN), his time as coach of Espanyol. The entity will start its 87th season in Primera with a still incomplete team, which lives immersed in a traumatic and necessary metamorphosis: after confirming the unexpected departures of the first two captains (David López and Diego López), the club declares the three transferable most expensive players in their history: Raúl de Tomás, Matías Vargas and Adrián Embarba. The Spanish entity paid, between 2019 and 2020, 43 million – and quite high salaries – for three players who, for now, do not seem to fit into the planning of the new coach. The first two have had no minutes during this preseason, while the third has had almost zero prominence.

Their future will depend on what the market says, but the club’s position is clear: they are not counted on for several reasons. The first, economic: they are three players with a good poster. In the case of the tip, it is expected to obtain a capital gain, while for the two ends the club expects to be able to recover close to half of what it invested. Any of the three exits would free up a significant chunk of salary. The second big reason is sports: they are three players who are not very committed defensively, a condition that the new coach does not like.

Diego Martínez has made it clear with insistence that “the star of Espanyol must be the team”. In other words, the collective must weigh more than any of its individualities. And this, in practice, happens by doing without those pieces that, no matter how much they have a name, do not want to put on the work frog for the benefit of the team.

The inevitable full route of Durán

The noble offices of the RCDE Stadium have been aware, for months, that this summer it was necessary to carry out a shake-up that would not only affect a large part of the staff, but would also have repercussions on the organizational chart. To start a new cycle, away from the vices of the past, so criticized by the fans, a revolution similar to that developed by Chen Yansheng in his first year at the club was needed.

The vast majority of changes that have begun to be seen this summer, in fact, have been planned for several months. As already explained by ARA in March, the previous general manager of Espanyol, José María Durán, had presented to Chen Yansheng a detailed plan in which all the movements of players in and out were specified in addition to the relief to the sports director. Durán understood that the team needed a shake-up to be able to make a qualitative leap forward for next year. Disagreements with Chen Yansheng, however, prevented him from executing a plan inherited by the club’s new CEO, Mao Ye.

While Durán bet on bringing back Ramon Planes – who ended up signing for Getafe – as Rufete’s replacement, Chen and Mao chose to internally promote Domingo Catoira, who had been at the club for two years as technical secretary. Three weeks from the end of the market, Espanyol has already executed 19 operations (12 departures, six signings and two returning loanees). Despite freeing up a large chunk of payroll, he still needs an added economic boost to finish seasoning the workforce.

The great majority of this impulse is dependent on the exit of RDT, the great serial of the Spanish summer market. The player has been looking for an exit for months, but it is not easy to find a buyer who will pay the 40 million that the white-and-blue club is asking for. The top-flight environment will make the most of the options, and England and Germany are two markets where he could find a destination. Despite the fact that the striker has not participated in any of the friendlies of this pre-season, both the club and those around him deny that there has been any confrontation with the new coach and justify his absences due to a question of physical level. The parties are aware that it will be necessary to remain very patient in a market that continues to slow down.

RDT believes that it is time to test himself in a major European club, but if he ends up staying, he will have to come to an agreement and sign a marriage of convenience, even if it is for a few months, with a Diego Martínez who could having to stay with him as Guardiola did with Eto’o. An outcome that no party rules out right now and that could end up being beneficial for everyone.

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