Martín Cauteruccio, reflections of a goalscorer: “The head is 80 percent of the athlete; if you're okay, you'll work the rest well”

“I come from a middle-class family, my parents separated when I was very young and I was raised with the image of them with their respective constituted partners. I lived a lot with my grandmother.” The shrewd Martin Cauteruccio inside the area needs no introduction, the man who lives in low profile behind Aldosivi's scoring captain does. Caute grew up in quiet Montevideo under the protection of his grandmother while he shared some weekends with his old men when the separation from his parents still had a certain scent of taboo.

The 34-year-old Uruguayan has a fruitful history in Argentine football, shining with the Quilmes shirt a decade ago and consolidating himself in one of the best San Lorenzo in recent times. By then, it had been difficult for him to ratify his scrolls as the historical top scorer of the lower ones of Nacional and he could barely unfold his potential in his lands he crossed the pond. Today, after being in the eye of several clubs in the last pass market, he remained at the Tiburón to be leader of Martin Palermo's team. How does the head of a referent think of a wardrobe?

- Many times Luis Suárez, with whom they shared a position in inferior Nacional, said in interviews that he owed you a lot, that you helped him and even lent him clothes and so on... What was that boys' relationship like?

- It's just that we both came from similar classes. Luckily we never lacked anything, but what little we had was shared on both sides. We've known each other since we were very young with Luis. We started playing at Nacional at the age of 12 or 13 and from then on our career grew. Each later took its course, but we've known each other since we were kids.

- They were competing for the position, but they hit the wave anyway, why? what did they have in common?

— We got along well from the start. Being good boys, maybe he didn't play that much, then he started playing. We alternated because apart from the two of us was Bruno Fornaroli (today in Australian football). Honestly, the 87 of Nacional was a category that got many players, it was very powerful. It went very well for us. Many of us who started at that time are still playing, which is not so normal. With Luis we shared a lot of time inside the club and then outside. I was going to his house, he came to mine. As well as a few years later we shared with Bruno, who was from the interior of the country. The truth is that we were very close in that category.

- Is the relationship going on at a distance today?

- Yes, we talk to each other every now and then. Obviously today there are many issues that you don't have from day to day, distance plays its role. As we grew older, everyone has also formed their relationships. He started his family, he has a beautiful family. And that means you don't have the day to day, but we do maintain the relationship and every time we talk it's like we talk every day. Usually our meetings after his career in Europe were when he came to Uruguay and I agreed there.

- Many times it was said that at first it was difficult for him and then he was winning the place, did he already see the goalscorer he ended up being?

— He always had skills and improved them a lot more over time. He is a player who went from less to more and when he reached the high point he exploded. He saw everything that has been seen since the moment he left Uruguay. The truth makes me very happy because the reality is that he is a boy who has always worked and everything he has deserves it.

- Does he owe you some clothes or did he give you everything back...?

- Hahaha, not really we were very close and mine was his, he was mine. It's not that he didn't have anything and I used to solve his sneakers. We both had little and what little we had we shared.

- You grew up as the top scorer of inferiors in Nacional, you settled first and managed to be a scorer, can you train a scorer or is it something that comes innate? what is the chip that you have different from the rest of the players?

— It seems to me that it is very much the intention, what each person wants. In my case it's like it was happening. I was always a striker since I was a boy, I was in more contact with the rival arc. So I was generating that desire of all the matches to be on the scoreboard. As you go forward and the possibilities are given and you mark, it's like you're wanting more and more. I always had the possibility and the joy of always being able to stay in the same position. I had teammates who started out as strikers, start to fall back and end up defending. It's something I like because there's the constant challenge of having to search and work to be able to create situations as well.

- Do you come to talk to Palermo to ask him secrets of the position?

- Yes, of course it strikes me to have someone like him as a coach. We are not much about talking hand in hand, but it is obviously in everything to do with the position at given times. He approaches me and all the comrades who need some advice or correction.

— You had a busy pass market, there was a lot of talk about a transfer but you stayed and now you have to be captain and fight to make historic club records (NdR: seek to be top scorer in Aldosivi's first), how do you live with that?

— I'm very good, very motivated. It seems to me that the main thing in this situation is to be calm. Knowing that everything that happens happens for something. If that something made me have to continue in Aldosivi, it was for a great reason. Not to mention that motivates me to achieve things in the club. These are the things that make the player find motivation beyond doing what they like. In the case of the strikers it is to be able to leave a mark, to be in the history of the club.

— It's your turn to be captain, how do you live with that responsibility? what kind of leadership do you exercise in the dressing room?

— It is important for you as a captain what you want to mark, if you just want to carry the tape or also transfer a way of thinking, a behavior and that that responsibility not only lies with me, but that it covers the entire team. Here he is not just a player, we all have to do our best for the common good. I, as perhaps today's group leader, try to lead by example and that in this case the motto is a lot of work, a lot of intensity and never giving up. Leading by example is the most important thing. There is no more intense contagion than the contagion of example. I can't say anything without doing it first. That is essential to be able to maintain a strong team.

— You always showed yourself with a low profile beyond how you were doing at the time, does the football atmosphere make you noisy at times? I'm talking about seeing most of the players with the most luxurious cars, the clothes always in fashion, do you think that can confuse a player who just arrives first?

— Sometimes it happens, I had the joy of having a family in the back that was always there to advise me, gave me an upbringing that was very fruitful and always gave me values that would give me the power to think what was best for me in the future. From a very young age I had to manage my money and I was able to give myself some luxury that I wanted to give myself because I had the possibility of earning my money, but I always thank my parents and grandmother for the upbringing they gave me so that I could see and understand what really is important to be able to progress and not go around sending me crazy things. Then in football you do see all the cases. Today, when I have to be one of the greats of the squad, maybe if I saw something like that what I would do would be to advise, but here nobody owns anyone and everyone does what he thinks best...

- How did you live with that rise and fall that you had to live in San Lorenzo to score goals, have a serious injury and then be able to return at a good level?

— The passage through San Lorenzo marked me, I lived many things. A lot of opposite moments. To be able to score goals, feel good and then get injured. It was very hard because I stood for six months in the middle of all that change from Quilmes to San Lorenzo. It is not easy to return from such an injury and I had the prize of being able to play the final of the Libertadores, to be champion. Being in a leading team and all the matches as a result, playing with Milan, Rome, going to play the Match for Peace and meet the Pope. It was a moment that after the slap came all that glory.

- In that rise and fall of the previous injury (the ligaments of the knee were broken), it is exposed that football one day you are completely successful and suddenly you are slapped. Did you have doubts?

— Honestly in my head was never the “my train passed”, but it's complicated. The head starts to raise questions about how you're going to get back. I was always sure of something: I was going to recover well and I was going to return to repeat what I had already started to do. The head is 80% of the athlete; if you are well, you will work everything else well. If you're bad upstairs, everything else won't be enough.

“Do you get confused when you go from the absolute love of people who tell you that you are the best and on the other days that you do badly start fierce criticism?”

— It can happen, especially when the changes are very abrupt. One day you may be a juvenile, you are training first and the next day you made your debut, it went very well and after two months they came looking for you to sell yourself for millions. The most important thing in a football player, who is ultimately a person, are the bases, the containment and the people who have been talking to you since childhood and instilling a little what can happen with the decisions that are made in the future. I never did crazy things in my career.

— Today you have to be captain and you can look back, at some point they invented a romance with a partner in Mexico, beyond the fact that you clarified that topic at the time and it was denied, why is homosexuality still taboo in football?

— Actually I didn't even come out to clarify because I had nothing to say. It was something that had been invented and was beyond what I could think. Honestly, I even thought it was funny, because in my case it was unthinkable. But it is part of who takes it and at the time it came out perhaps they were looking to generate some problem within the club or on the squad. One at a time, who has a lot of exposure, we know that we are prone to all this kind of thing. Then it goes on how you take things. I took it easy because I knew that my family and my environment know me, in short, if I had become a boyfriend with a partner I would have no problem saying it. But it's not my personal tastes. To the extent that some who really feel it, have their partner and want to show it, that is going to start to become more normal. Today, since there is no talk, those issues are not handled. It seems to me that it goes hand in hand in the desire that each one has to externalize it. Over time it will normalize as everything has been normalized.

— When you were injured in San Lorenzo you decided to finish school, why?

— I knew I had to finish it and it was something that I had been carrying for times and a little laziness. I was postponing it. When I was injured, beyond training twice as much, I understood that it was time to finish what had been left unfinished. It is important because it serves you for life and especially for you to feel that a cycle is over.

— Based on that decision, do you think that tomorrow you will continue to be linked to football or are you going to study something else?

— The truth is, I don't know what the future holds for me. The main thing for anyone is to prepare. Then the roads move and it will fluctuate as you think that one path is better than another. The most important thing is preparation, then you make the decision. Today I can't tell you what I can end up doing because I think about tomorrow, and tomorrow is training. Then I will see, but yes, I want to prepare myself and have the solid foundations to be able to choose.

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