MADRID, 10 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The national women’s water polo coach, Miki Oca, acknowledged his “great luck” in having two Olympic gold medals to his name, one as a player and this Saturday’s one in Paris 2024 as a coach, won thanks to having “a group that has excellent players, committed, eager and very good competitors.”
“I’m very lucky, I’m serious, I really am, I’m completely serious. I was very lucky as a player and to be in a group of very talented players and to have a great coach and now I’m very lucky to be in a group that has excellent players, committed, eager and very good competitors,” Oca told the media after winning gold.
The coach made it clear that he has “no gift or anything.” “I’m a normal coach, we work and the girls have a lot of quality and a lot of talent and above all a lot of work and a lot of commitment,” he added, warning that he did not see a big change in these Games. “This is high competition, sometimes you lack very ‘little’ and that ‘little’ comes out in another competition,” he added.
“I think this group has been at a very high level for a long time, so I don’t know if anything has changed, but what has changed is that we are Olympic gold medalists and we have never been. I think we have been at a very good level throughout the tournament and we beat the United States in the group match, and Holland in the semi-finals, but in high competition the results sometimes go one goal up, one goal down,” he stressed.
Regarding the final, he believes that they maintained “a very good level of play from the beginning to the end.” “They did too, they are a team that has shown to be very powerful. Little by little we managed to get ahead and from there we always observed that advantage of one or two goals up and in the last period we opened a bigger gap that gave us some peace of mind until the end,” he explained.
Regarding goalkeeper Martina Terré, who was key in the final, he said that “she is young” but that she has already been “doing very well in several tournaments.” “We are very lucky because we have a goal that is very well protected by both Martina and Laura (Ester). Martina is the one who is having more minutes lately but both of them give us a lot of security at the back,” he said.
The Madrid native also confessed that he had “no” memory of his gold medal as a player in Atlanta’96. “I am absolutely happy with this one,” he concluded, while admitting that he does not know “what this gold means.” “I have no idea. We have it, we are very happy and it is the fruit of the work of the whole group, even of some who have not been able to be here, but who have also been part of the team, but I don’t know what it means,” continued Oca, who does not believe that this triumph “is neither the end nor the beginning” but rather it is “a step” that they have taken.
For the coach, this team has been “working and growing” since his arrival in 2010. “They were very young girls with little experience, and they have been gaining experience, mixed with some veterans who already had experience and were already established on the international circuit, and little by little they have been getting the hang of what the big competition is and there they are,” he said.
“There are veteran players who are very talented and have been competing for a long time, and there are young girls who have been growing very well, who have also shown in their lower categories and now in the national team that they are good competitors. It is a group that works, that is very united,” she stressed.
For this reason, he said he was “happy for the team.” “They all work hard and contribute. Some have been waiting longer and I am obviously very happy for those who have been looking for this medal for years, of course. But also for the young women who have come and have been giving their all for a long time to the team’s work and to building all this. I have been hearing from them throughout the preparation that they came for the gold and there they have it, they have taken it,” he concluded.