The Spanish word "remontada" is becoming infamous around the world because of the extraordinary against-the-odds fightbacks (the literal translation) that Real Madrid consistently produce in the UEFA Champions League. But while the rulers of Europe will be hoping to conjure up one of those logic-defying comebacks against Arsenal at the Bernabéu on Wednesday, there's a lower-profile -- but equally worthy of appreciation -- remontada happening at the heart of Barcelona's brilliant back line.
The man in focus is Iñigo Martínez. Without any shadow of doubt, he is the team leader at the Spanish champions-elect, the boss of that back four, the man who marshals their exhilarating, ridiculously high-wire, advanced offside line. But he is also a man who also looked to have lost both the possibility of playing for Barcelona and, most likely, ever being chosen for his national team again.
The 33-year-old Basque central defender was first selected as a Barcelona leader-in-the-making while still at Real Sociedad in 2016-17. Ernesto Valverde, then in charge of Barcelona, decided Martínez was a must-sign player who could add steel to his aging, increasingly dilapidated Blaugrana side that eventually fell apart so dramatically (3-0 up, losing 4-3) at Liverpool in 2019 -- the last time the Catalans reached a Champions League semifinal.
When Valverde persuaded the Camp Nou moneymen to go and sign Martínez, using some of the €222 million Barcelona had just received from Paris Saint-Germain for Neymar, he was shocked to find a Praetorian guard of Barcelona old timers -- Lionel Messi, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suárez and Gerard Piqué -- begging him not to sign Martínez.
Whatever that felt like to Valverde back then, it looks like utter madness now. It wasn't, as such, a prohibition order on the defender himself by those players but specifically a vote from his adoring teammates that Javier Mascherano needed to be kept as Barça's defensive leader.
"Jefecito" is Mascherano's nickname -- "the little boss." To the gnarled competitors at Barcelona like Messi, Suárez and Alba, though, the little boss was their big boss -- as he's become again at Inter Miami CF. They wanted to keep the Argentine at all costs and believed that meant closing the door on Martínez.
How did that end up? Well, Mascherano left the club for China halfway through the 2017-18 season anyway, sick of not getting enough game time, and Barcelona fell apart defensively in the 2018 Champions League quarterfinals against AS Roma (4-1 up, out 4-4 on away goals) followed by that all-time embarrassment at Anfield a year later.
Might Martínez have made the difference? Perhaps, and not only on those nights of infamy, but because of his hard, unremittingly demanding leadership on a day-to-day basis. He is the kind of man who influences training ground culture and who, without question, would have spotted the rot and stood up to the star culture that emerged around Messi, Suárez and Piqué. Valverde needed a guy like Martínez so, so much.
Martínez himself closed the door, potentially at least, on an international future with Spain by making it clear to the FA before selection was made for the delayed Euro 2020 that he wished not to be considered. I hugely admired his decision to announce, publicly, that he was not in mental shape to do himself, or his national team, justice if chosen for the demands of that summer 2021 tournament.
"It's tough to write this but for some time I've not been at 100% mentally or physically in order to compete at the level demanded by Athletic or the Spain team," Martínez said in a statement. "To be honest with those teams, and myself, I've decided to step aside, disconnect, try to recharge my batteries and regain the strength which has been central to my career. This season I've left everything I've got on the pitch to try and qualify Athletic for Europe and get myself in the Spain squad for the Euro with the result that, in all sincerity, I don't believe I'd be at the level required for this tough test which Spain faces this summer."
It's the type of thing, a little bit like whistleblowing by an employee who knows dark industrial secrets, where the intentions are right, the reasons behind it are honorable and laudable, many people will appreciate and understand you, but, soon, you spot the wary glances, you see opportunities diminishing, and eventually you realize that you've been isolated and put on the shelf. Doing the right thing is risky.