Diego Martínez: “I hope Luis Milla recovers as soon as possible”

Can you take stock of this year? “This is not the time to take stock. I understand the question, but you must understand my answer. We are in the preview of a very important match. All our focus must be on Valencia, a great team and a great game, and on the possibility of competing for three points which, in the event of victory, would leave us with 24 points. All energies must be there. When that game is over, we can think about other things. Now, all our focus is on Valencia ”.

On the Shareholders' Meeting held this Wednesday morning and possible institutional doubts. “I do not know that situation. I am a soccer coach. I know we are going to face a great team. You look at the Valencia line-up and it's full of good players. We must follow our line of competition and performance. My day to day remains the same as in the two and a half years that I have been here. Both with Antonio Monterrubio, the general manager) and with Fran (Sánchez, sports director) are my daily interlocutors. We intend to continue growing as a club and giving our best version as a team. And in those I am. I don't think of anything else ”.

Break time. “They have also had their days off. It has been an atypical week, with two days of Christmas, on special dates. Emotionally it is not easy for the professional, since we are privileged, because most of us have lived these dates without our loved ones. There was also the case of the Milla coronavirus … We are never bored here, because quiet there is no week, but we live with enthusiasm. We have tried to recover after a marathon of important matches. We are facing a big one. Because Valencia will always be a great team, with a great coach like Javi Gracia, who at a tactical level is going to demand a lot from us “.

How does the loss of Luis Milla influence the team? “Experience tells me that you can plan many things and reality is dictating others. You have to adapt to the circumstances. I hope and wish that Luis recovers as soon as possible and that there are no more cases of this type. Milla and Montoro are of a similar profile in terms of characteristics, but if there is something that has the identity of this team, it is that we want and we have to be chameleonic. There are players who will not be there, like Machís or someone else. They are not there, but others will enter with other characteristics that will give us other things. You have to try to be competitive and chameleonic ”.

About Valencia: “It is a big club, in the eleven the majority are players from last year. With a very defined stamp by his coach, in addition to talent he has speed and experience. He knows how to compete well. We have faced each other three times last year and they have been evenly matched, competitive matches, of great equality, intensity and demand. I think beautiful for the viewer. What you want is to face important teams and Valencia, not only because of history but also because of current events, it is. It will be the last game of a year at our house, in 2020, which is unforgettable sportingly because of the great moments experienced by this team ”.

The Covid. “Above all, it has affected socially. It would be unfair to focus on sports, although it has been an atypical season that has conditioned everything, the plans, the work methodology … But it would be unfair to talk about sports when in daily life, friends, family and society are living a real drama. I think it will make us better for the future. As before the Covid, since I have been the coach of this team, I have said that you have to adapt and face adversity to try to give the best version. I hope that in 2021 there will be health and that it brings back that, for me, badly called normality to our lives. Right now with lamenting or crying, we do not solve anything. You have to pitch in, our generation has had to live this. When I talk to my grandmother, she has had to live the postwar period and others, in other countries, have experienced much more dramatic things than ours.