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BEHIND THE STRIPES

Tata Martino

By Atlanta United FC

November 8^th, 2017

Tata Martino’s lifelong soccer journey has taken him all over the world, but the formal start to his career began at a club in his hometown of Rosario, Argentina, which also happens to sport red and black. To this day Martino will tell you he only roots for two club teams: wherever he’s coaching and Newell’s Old Boys.

“I started playing as a holding midfielder, but with me there was absolutely no holding,” Martino said. “I was always very technical, could hit the ball well, good vision, intelligent player. But I ran very little.”

He joined the Newell’s academy at 12 and developed into an attacking midfielder, progressing within the club until his first team debut in Rosario against River Plate at age 17. His 509 appearances as a player with Newell’s are the most in the history of the club, and he remains the only person to win a title as both a player and coach.

“The thing that has stuck with me the most from soccer are the friends that I have today, (assistant coach) Jorge Theiler among them,” Martino said. “And the chances to win titles are the most gratifying moments. Above all when you can do it with the club that you started at, a club from the interior. In Argentina, it’s very difficult for a club from the interior of the country to become champion. We were able to do it various times.”

The idea to coach surfaced even before his playing days were over. Martino started a course to become a coach at 28 and had it finished by the time he was 30, all while he was still playing professionally. He thought it would be good to have in his pocket, just in case if at any moment he felt like becoming a coach, he would be ready.

After getting his start in Argentina, Martino made a name for himself as a manager in Paraguay, where he won four league championships before taking over as coach of Paraguay’s national team in 2007. He led La Albirroja to the quarterfinals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, losing 1-0 to eventual champion Spain, and then to the 2011 Copa America final.

The next stop on his coaching journey was a familiar one. Martino returned to Newell’s in 2012 and turned a team that was fighting a relegation battle into league champions the following season. He also led Newell’s to the semifinals of the 2013 Copa Libertadores, South America’s top club competition.

The turnaround didn’t go unnoticed, and when Barcelona came calling, Martino accepted the challenge of managing one of the sport’s biggest clubs and a fellow Rosario native, guiding Barcelona to a second-place finish in La Liga in his lone season in Spain. A few months later, during the summer of 2014, Martino became the manager of the Argentine national team. He would take his country to two-straight Copa America finals, ultimately losing to Chile on penalties on both occasions.

After coaching stints at two of the most publicly exposed and highly criticized jobs in world soccer, he was ready for something new.

“When one starts a career, they always aspire to grow as a professional until they reach the most relevant places. For me, I reached the most relevant places and evidently I needed an experience to bring back the motivation of the day to day, each training session, to watch the evolution of a team week after week, game after game, and that’s what’s happening here in Atlanta.”

He had heard through soccer contacts in the United States that Atlanta United was interested in speaking to him about the head coaching position, but he didn’t begin to seriously consider the opportunity until club President Darren Eales and Technical Director Carlos Bocanegra flew to Rosario for a meeting, to which Martino arrived with a fat folder of scouting reports on MLS teams. After a few more conversations over the following months, Atlanta had its first manager in club history.

“Fundamentally, to be able to participate in the birth of a club from the very beginning,” Martino says about what attracted him to Atlanta, “to implement a style of play, to choose the players. It was a great opportunity that I wanted to take advantage of.”

With Martino on the sideline, Atlanta became just the fourth MLS expansion team and the first since Seattle in 2009 to qualify for the playoffs in its inaugural season. The club delivered on its promise to play attractive soccer and scored 70 goals, an expansion team record and the fifth-most goals in league history, and finished with the fourth-best goal differential (+30) of all-time.

“I’d like Atlanta United to be a team known for how it plays,” Martino said. “To be an institution that has a model, and that the model carries it forward from the U12’s to the first team.”

In the stands, Atlanta set league records for single-game, average and total attendance, setting a new standard for a city and its fan base in an inaugural season.

“I want to say a profound thank you to all the fans,” Martino said. “Starting from when we didn’t even have any players, the support has been there all year. From starting to play at Bobby Dodd Stadium and then this new stage of the season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium…The trust that they had in Arthur (Blank), Darren, Carlos, myself, to trust what the team was going to offer. I think that later they supported that high level of trust with their massive presence at each one of our games.”

And when asked if he learned anything about himself from this first season, the 54-year-old’s response is simple.

“I learned that I was able to recover the will to coach. That’s what I feel here in Atlanta. I went back to feeling like a coach, something that hadn’t happened to me in a while.”

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