“Luis moved me”: the experience with Scola
In the run-up to the 2019 World Cup in China, where Luis Scola showed his best version at the age of 39, Mariano traveled to the field owned by Luifa and there were three months of many experiences. “The most difficult job was Luifa, because he was a demanding mango player. It’s amazing that he accumulates so many details to correct from one week to the next. The first week he asked me to defend him for more resistance, the other week he asked me for a job in transition, then counterattack. It was a lot of things,” he said.
Sánchez explained that he sought to challenge the then captain of the team, so the challenge was mutual. “I wanted a change for him. I asked him for a month and a half to touch physical issues for technique and the footwork system to exhaust him to the limit of his best level in body control and handling.” That came through when Scola hit a pair of doubles running the floor like he was 20 years younger. Behind those plays, was the previous training.
“Luifa excited me when she made an effort. It broke me inside, because I thought that with something as simple as a ball, you are making an effort at the handle. He already has a field, a plane, 10 years in the NBA, it is done economically. And yet he wanted to take the team to the World Cup,” the coach confessed and added: “I worked three hours and then I was going to shoot tired. No one told him ‘we’ve come this far’, he wanted to put the limit at the end of practice, but he was aware because he knew he needed to train. You were excited and he didn’t want to be congratulated, he wanted to go to the next level.”
Mariano’s words paint him as one of the best athletes in the country’s history: “Luifa is very methodological. He always looks for what he cannot achieve. Sometimes you have to prick yourself, it’s not just training and being in shape. It’s going beyond.”
Manu, Luifa and the Golden Generation
Many remain with the talent of the Golden Generation that won the 2004 Olympic Games, won several titles and put Argentina at the highest level of world basketball.
However, there was individual and collective work that made success possible and Mariano highlights it like this: “I see that the Golden Generation had a tremendous discipline. Obviously there are egos because each one wants to be the best, but that led to the fact that when they came together they were powerful. I think it was a tremendous school.”
He also reported that it is related to Alejandro Montecchia in the campuses that toast next to the Egg. “I am close to Puma Montecchia and for me he is an idol, he trained extra. You ask him what you want and the guy will answer you. I saw Manu insult himself when he missed triples, I saw him run alone when it was cold, I saw him want to train with an old ball because he didn’t want to bother. They are types with a different ambition”, described.
how do you live it
Working with people with such an impact on their own worldwide is great, but Mariano works without thinking about it. “In principle, I am very earthy, I love to maintain a close relationship with players and coaches. I like that the coaches’ process is respected. I take it as the possibility of having better plans. I do not seek to feel more than others, but rather that discipline and ambition be respected and that the place be given to the coaches that they have to be given. In the United States they taught me that jealousy is a waste of time,” he recounted with conviction.
Among several players with whom he had contact, he mentioned working with Tim Hardaway and what he experienced in the “Pre-Draft” of the NBA, where the future talents of the highest league on the planet are seen: “You have to cover all the senses. They talk about basketball, about the concept, about players. It’s a matter to be united and raise the level of coaches, coaches and physical trainers. Competition is not enough. Training, body language and that each one develops on the pitch is essential. That she be a creative and effective player”.
Mariano Sanchez- Basketball Clinic in Independiente (6).JPG
Maria Isabel Sanchez
Discipline, a flag
“What I see in the United States is the players who are preparing for the draft are that they have discipline and that they persist. They put the goal in their heads, they suffer the physical part until they feel more comfortable. It’s not that they say on the third day ‘I’m tired’. They have different genetics but they accompany it with effort and discipline,” Sánchez stressed.
Among the future talents at a professional level, he mentioned Cameron Boozer, 15 years old. “He can play as a perimeter being very tall. In the predraft they talked to him about his behavior, his body language and his footwork in the low post. I think we have to transmit that in training,” he emphasized.
To improve movements with the intensity that Sánchez indicates, being physically fit is an unavoidable condition, otherwise injuries will come later. “The physical and athletic part is fundamental. The physique has to be prepared to react, to be elastic. We can’t start working on the physical at 20 years old,” he said.
Mariano Sanchez- Basketball Clinic in Independiente (3).JPG
Maria Isabel Sanchez
Why did you choose the profession?
“I decided to be a coach because I saw that the boys lost the passion to train. I saw that they were not going to play one against one or alone, as I did as a boy. I put pressure on myself to play, to improve myself. I trained in Serbia and put everything into the pitch for the boys, in the technical and cognitive part of knowing how the player does it. The idea is that the boys don’t learn by learning or by heart, but rather feel motivated and learn. Later he went to Michigan, Miami, Barcelona and all that journey led me to the NBA,” said Mariano Sánchez. A statement that is as summarized as it is forceful, because if he got far it was after many years of effort, perseverance and passion, the same that he demands from his people.
The link with Neuquén
Your friend in the area is Paul Almond, Independiente player and one of the top scorers in the region at the Federal level in recent years. The Red shooter used to go to the Huevo Sánchez campus when he was very young. “I met Pablo as a camper, he used some braids that Roxi (Roxana Grisolia, Almendra’s mother) made for him. I crossed him there and suddenly it was my turn to play Federal and we agreed. We began to get along great, we are the We were both very competitive, we fought and we managed all the time. He is a very healthy kid,” he said with a laugh.
“I had done well in Corrientes and I closed in Huracán de Trelew as minibasketball and TNA coach, where we met Pablo again”, and since then the friendship continues to grow over the years, to the point that they spent this week training as they come doing in recent seasons. Mariano works the individual technique of his friend with daily hours of a very demanding practice every time he comes to the region.
Always with his simplicity and thanking the treatment, he concluded: “Here people treat me spectacular. I like to unite, share, listen, be with the boys from the formative, some of the girls from the feminine also joined. I came to all the practices from Federal. I always take a lot with me, I feel at home. The Almendra family is my family, they are basketball people. Héctor (Pablo’s father and former player) is collaborating with the club and intends to help the training courses to make this a community. And I’m happy, it’s basketball.”
Interview with Mariano Sánchez
2023-08-17 23:37:00
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