Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2022

71 70 Star Chat age, which gave me a chance to be able to be part of a very hard competition, what was proved when I arrived. When you made your debut for the Argentinian national team, you played three FIFA World Cups. How do you keep a high level of performance for so long? Firstly, a high level of competition like the European one. Then, encountering people who help you, mainly in the mental aspect. Nowadays, football staff have more resources to approach all the needs of the players from different perspectives, being different in our age, where we had the Strength & Conditioning coach, the coach and its assistant, the doctor and no one else. They covered all the needs that we had as players. That is why there’s no other way that something like this can come up from another head rather than the one of Valter. Therefore, to meet people who elevate your capacities plus our intrinsic competition we had within the squad, which made us always push to stay at a very high level. You never got relaxed, you never had the chance to let an opportunity pass by. So then, both from the mental aspect, football, medical and physical preparation itself, we were able to keep a high level for so long. What does Aspire Fellows mean for you? This event was born from a great idea from a great friend, Valter Di Salvo. He made it possible for clubs and National Teams who are far away and lack information, even though nowadays it is much easier because of the internet, to exchange ideas and opinions with each other. Not only about football, but about what happens with the football players off the pitch. We all are football developers and exporters, and most of the people who receive our players are here, this gets us closer, and guides us about how we must prepare them to be able to reach Europe or any other part of the world. In that regard, Valter’s idea allows us to reach places where before was difficult, but now we are able to share a working space and exchange ideas. When you were growing up, your father was your coach, was there any memory you hold from the beginning of your football career? Yes, obviously the best ones. My father was a player in the club and then he became a coach, but he was not a person who was really on top of me, he allowed me to developmyself as a player overall, in a club which prioritizes personal development. Not only for those who reach the professional team, but also for those who leave the club and take the development with them to link it with their lives. My father is a person of few words, and during my development process, I kept with me a phrase, “Be humble”. Being humble is not about coming from a place without resources. For me being humble represents to love our profession, to respect our teammates, to respect the coach and the people who aren’t part of the coaching staff but are the ones who do the laundry, who clean the changing room, etc. That is something I always took with me and tried to implement it wherever I was as a player, and now off of the pitch. After your youth career, at 21 you joined Boca Juniors. Not soon after that, you made your debut for the Argentine national team. What are your emotions, your thought process as you are about to embark on that next journey of your football career? By that age, it was a jump towards what I wanted for my career. The fact I had reached Boca Juniors and met people like Diego Maradona and Claudio Caniggia, people who have made history in football, it was a training for what I was going to face later when arriving in Italian football. For me, Italian Football was in its best Juan Sebastian Veron