Man from one club in Seis do Nadal

Jorge Martínez Vaqueiro (Vigo, 1981) has been associated with basketball for more than thirty years. He started playing at the age of nine – he was also involved in badminton, but immediately decided on it – and the role of coach soon attracted his attention. Everything, in six do nothinghe Vigo, the club of his life from which he has never separated and with which he fully identifies. “I started as a child through my older brother who also played and was a coordinator at the club. My father led the association of fathers and mothers and all the connections came from there,” he sums up. He started as a coach at the age of 16, and continues today.

He made peace with the pitch and the wing while he could, but when the job forced him to choose, he was already quite clear about his favorite side. “I decided to stop playing, I didn’t doubt it in the slightest and I never regretted it. It was the right decision,” he says. His beginnings in this field were due to the lack of technicians and the desire to help. That was the origin. “More and more women’s teams began to be created, and no one took a step. People were needed, and I started with twelve-year-old girls,” he explains. It was his brother who suggested him as coordinator.

He says that until he was 14-15 years old, the bench never crossed his mind. Until that age, he was filled with the game and had no other plans in his head. “Then you get the itch to try. The first experience was good and everything went smoothly from then on,” he adds. She has always led women’s teams, from the small ones from her beginnings to this senior team that she leads now, where she has “everything”, including players in their thirties.

Martínez Vaqueiro has always loved working with the quarry because of the opportunity to see the progress of athletes. However, he revealed that he really enjoys being with seniors. “In recent years, being at big tournaments has helped me improve, it has made me train a lot more,” he explains. Sometimes he also combined more than one team, which is currently not possible for him.

A few years ago, he was thinking of taking a breather and resting, but now, with the group he has, he no longer has those doubts. “The results were not affected, but mental fatigue, exhaustion. When you combine that with work, it’s complicated,” he notes. Everything starts from the self-requirement that one always wants to give the maximum. “You leave your job and it’s not worth it for me to do it in any way. I want to give 200% and sometimes you don’t get hours,” says Jorge Martínez.

This last year, when he competes in the national category, is the one in which he dedicated the most hours to basketball, but he notes with satisfaction that it was “worth it”. “This means traveling to the north of Spain and investing more time. And in training preparations, watching rival matches… There is a lot of work that cannot be seen”, he claims about the work of the coach.

It was not unusual for him to stay working until two or three in the morning, and then have to get up at six the next day because of work commitments at a packaging lithography company. “It is physical work, but the wear and tear is also mental. When you work in shifts, one week is in the morning and the next in the afternoon,” he explains. This implies the need for good organization and, in addition, that he always has someone with him to help him train when he doesn’t have all the time he needs.

All these years, he has been rewarded with the smiles of the children when, for example, they qualify for the Spanish championship, but above all by witnessing their progress. “This year, everyone said that we are not the best team, but as a group we are the best,” he says proudly. When asked how to reach a group of that level, he says that it is a matter for the players. “They are the ones who make up the group, create those links, and I don’t know if I have that role or not.” I try to be there for what they need,” he emphasizes.

He says that for years he was “very contentious” for the club’s welfare and that the Management reacted. A directive that was never considered a part due to lack of time. He didn’t even think about changing the club even though he had an offer. “There were some strange ones, but nothing formal. They tell you something, but they know that you have been tied to the same club for a long time. My priority is my team,” he says.

Goals to be achieved

And he has his sights set on meeting the senior team he is currently responsible for. “I always set goals that are higher than the actual results, I demand 200% from myself and then I get to 100. With the club at the national level, the goal was to maintain the category and we are three at the top of the table of the year. table” to the extent that today he sees it feasible to fight for promotion to League 2, which was unthinkable until recently.