River’s coach Martin Demichelis, consecrated Argentine soccer champion months after his arrival, He recalled this Monday that he felt “with the capacity to assume the position” when the leadership proposed to replace Marcelo Gallardo, the most winning DT in the club’s history.
Rookie in the first division, after directing in the minor divisions of Bayern Munich, Demichelis said that he never doubted his conditions or taking on the challenge of taking over from the “Doll”who left the bar high with the conquest of 14 titles.
“It wasn’t easy but I understood that if River decided on us, it was time because I had invested a lot of time in training myself. I felt capable of assuming the position, beyond the fact that as DT one knows that one can win, tie and lose. Sometimes the ball goes in and sometimes it comes out,” reflected the man from Cordoba at a press conference shared with his collaborators at the River Camp property.
Demichelis, emotional on Saturday after the consecration victory in the Professional League, defined as “an unforgettable moment” what he experienced in the Monumental stadium, where he was applauded by the 86,000 people who attended the match with Estudiantes de La Plata.
In a return to his roots, after the first title of his career as a coach, the former defender of River, Bayern Munich and the Argentine national team He thanked “Ramón Díaz, the Engineer (Manuel) Pellegrini and so many coaches” with whom he was impregnated to outline his football ideology.
Demichelis highlighted as a virtue of the team the ability to “mutate” its tactical scheme to build the champion campaign, which he registered 57 points, with 18 wins, three draws and four losses, 45 goals for and 16 against in 25 dates, with two more to complete the League calendar.
“When we arrived we knew that we were going to need between 6, 8 or 10 games to define an idea, because the break for the World Cup in Qatar had been very long. We had a good pre-season and that helped us a lot”, explained the coach, who also clarified the tactical movements that he sought to implement. “In the first games we started with a 4-3-3 but later we adjusted to what the present dictated. We were mutating and on the eighth date in Junín (2-0 vs. Sarmiento) we won with authority and from there the other teams understood that we were prepared,” assured.
“We knew how to learn from mistakes, we took the lead and set the pace of the tournament. We won with supremacy and we were just deserving of this title”, he summed up about the comfortable path to the conquest of the club’s 70th star.