David Martín: “To beat us they have to sweat blood”

David Martín Lozano (Barcelona, ​​1977) anticipates the move when he sees that the photographer is preparing to photograph him in the Barça tracksuit of the national water polo team.

“Not like that, I look like I'm from Barça!” He says, taking off his sweatshirt.

Since he led Spain, the team that this self-confessed Real Madrid fan builds piece by piece has progressively grown to become the most powerful in the world.

Since 2018 he has entered at least all the semi-finals of major tournaments.

The gold in the World Cup in Budapest in 2022 and the European Championship that he has just won in Zagreb, place him and his players at the top of the pyramid of the Spanish delegation that attends the Doha Swimming World Cups, along with the women's team, the diving team, the artistic swimming team, and the inline swimming team.

Ask.

How do you prepare for a World Cup in February after playing a European Championship in January and with the Games scheduled for July?

Answer.

We did the physical preparation without filling the tank for the European Championship.

We leave a little for the World Cup.

The team has known how to compete with levels of preparation that are not very high and now we can be better than in the European Championship.

I hope that now the team will give its best level.

Q.

At what emotional moment do they arrive?

R.

At the best moment of this generation.

Now we are capable of winning games without playing well.

It was difficult for us before.

Before we had to play great water polo to beat certain rivals.

Now even in the final of the European Championship we were not at a very high level but rather we were very competitive and knew how to adapt.

It is the great leap that this generation has taken.

The ambition is very high.

We trust that our rivals will have to sweat blood to beat us.

Q.

It is evident that Spain has a strategic advantage that explains its constant superiority over powers such as Serbia, Croatia, Hungary or Italy.

Which is it?

R.

Achieving a culture of effort is very important.

There is no summer when the players relax.

This generation has gone through a process of being close to medals and losing them, or losing finals quickly, and you start to think how you can win.

You want to work more and this is the mentality.

It has been difficult for us to reach gold.

The first gold was in 2022. The other key is that tactically we are very variable.

These are very open players.

Every summer we add something new and they do it too.

This makes a very versatile team that offers something else in each championship and rivals do not do this.

They are repetitive.

Not this team.

This team gets better every year.

If you don't improve you fall from the fight.

The World Cup gold in Budapest took away a backpack from us and we began to have another level of experience in these matches.

Q.

What do you understand by versatility?

A.

This is a laboratory.

The player must receive new stimuli.

If you always train the same every summer it becomes very boring and tiresome.

We try to change something.

Especially in tactical preparation: 'We are going to play the minus man differently, we are going to play the plus man differently, we are going to change the counterattacks...'.

This makes you more attentive and makes you grow.

Another very important thing is that the group has become increasingly broader.

The competition to enter the national team is becoming more and more difficult.

You can't relax.

In the past there were players who knew they were coming for sure.

Now we put young players like Sanahuja or Unai Aguirre in Tokyo.

Q.

Seven enter the pool but during the game the 15 constantly rotate and they all end up playing a role fluidly.

How is it achieved?

A.

We have a very defined game system where the player improvises.

We don't play to play.

We create scenarios.

Players are prepared to move in any scenario and this creates fluidity because each one makes individual decisions knowing that their partner will cover them.

Individual tactics always have to appear: what cannot be is that they appear and others do not adapt to that change or compensate for that movement.

This system means that during the game you can see very fluid situations that seem mega-worked.

And they are the result of improvisation, within a work of many hours so that they know that a colleague's decision has to be followed by another decision.

This has to do with the neurological training of decision making to know what to do in each scenario.

Q.

What is the field of vision of a water polo player, considering that he is up to his neck in water without making any feet?

How many teammates does each swimmer control?

A.

That is the difference between Felipe Perrone, who sees all six, and others for whom it is more difficult.

The roles are very specified depending on what we detect.

Q.

There are figures in this sport that go unnoticed by the passing fan.

How do you explain a Marc Larumbe?

A.

Within the team everyone knows that Larumbe is our best one-on-one defender.

I think he is the best in the world at that.

He enjoys it.

You tell him: 'Marc, the team needs you to cancel this guy.'

He has the mentality.

And he anticipates.

Both in attack and defense, the best players in the world are those who anticipate.

I always tell them that when you are defending you have to think like an attacker: “What would you do to avoid the situation favorable to the attacker?”

And backwards.

When you are attacked he thinks like a defender: Where would he put his arm?

Larumbe in this is a phenomenon.

And Felipe too.

Why is Felipe the best in the world on the counterattack?

It's not because he swims more, but because he always anticipates.

Before the launch he is already gone.

Some have that sensitivity in attack, others in defense, and others do not have it.

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