‘You must put in little girls’ minds that they can play at Hampden, can represent Scotland, can win the World Cup. If you don’t, how are they going to be inspired?’
PASSION THE KEY TO FOOTBALL DREAMS, SAYS MARTINEZ LOSA
AS a bright kid who achieved top marks at school, Pedro Martinez Losa was steered towards the kind of solid job that keeps teachers happy and puts parents’ minds at rest.
What’s that line in the Albert Hammond hit Free Electric Band? Well, they used to sit and speculate upon their son’s career. A lawyer or a doctor or a civil engineer.
In this particular case, the advice was to become an industrial engineer. Football was to be something he did on the side.
When someone is truly passionate about something, however, they find a way. And nobody could ever doubt Martinez Losa’s commitment to the game.
Laughing as he recalled those family discussions in the wellheeled Madrid suburb of Pozuela de Alarcon, the new head coach of the Scotland women’s national team told Sportsmail: ‘My mum used to say: “Your head is a football. That’s all you have in your head”.
‘All my life, I’d been passionate and obsessive about games on the computer — Football Manager, you know — and I could spend hours and hours watching games. I was a big Real Madrid fan, too.
Now I’m a soft Real Madrid fan! But I was a great student academically. Depending on the grades you get at the last level, that decides what access you have to universities — or not.
‘I had a grade of like 8.6, which was close to the highest level, giving me access to all sorts of academic studies. I chose industrial engineering because I was supposed to be a brilliant student. It’s what teachers tell you when you have potential.’
One year was enough to persuade Martinez Losa (right) he wasn’t going to be happy with a life so far removed from football. So he switched to a degree in sports science. Always thinking it would give him a way into the beautiful game.
‘I played all my career at the local club (Pozuela de Alarcon) up to League 2 level,’ said the 45-year-old, who had represented his team in age-grade tussles against future Real Madrid stars like Raul, Guti and Iker Casillas.
‘When I was 26, the president fired the coach. I was one of the captains. He asked me to manage the team for the last four games, because they could save the salary of a new coach!
‘I had my qualifications and had studied sports science, so I thought: “Okay, why not?”.
‘We managed to win the last four games and everyone was excited. The president said: “We want to offer you the position of player and manager”.
‘I said no because I’d been playing with these guys for years, they were all my mates — so I couldn’t see myself coaching and playing.
‘I asked for time to think about it and, because I had a real passion for coaching and wanted a career at the highest level of sport, I offered to take the job as long as I didn’t play any more. I don’t know if I made the right or wrong decision.
But I made it. I still think you should play as long as you can. But I had this drive for coaching. And suddenly I felt it was the opportunity of my life — at 26.
‘I’d been a coach since I was 18, working with youth teams. And I was lucky to study sports science at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, which has the sports centre where all of the top athletes — the ones training for the Olympics — go to work.’
He admits that, when pressed to help Pozuela establish their first women’s team, his reaction wasn’t exactly positive.
‘I remember saying: “Listen, I don’t have any idea about women’s football”.’
That would change. A quick student, he eventually left the head coach job there to enjoy great success in charge of the women’s team at Rayo Vallecano and worked with some of the world’s best in the USA before taking top jobs at Arsenal and Bordeaux.
Now Martinez Losa arrives in Scotland on a dual mission. His first priority is to guide the national team to the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. But he’s also head of women’s performance at the SFA. Which means taking a wider look at the health of the game.
Picking up on a favourite quote from a coach of the Canadian team who just shocked the world to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics, he said: ‘His expression was: “We imagined it. Then we did it”.
‘You have to put it in little girls’ minds that they can play at Hampden Park, can represent their national team, can win the World Cup. If you don’t do that, how are they going to be excited and inspired?
‘I have a three-year-old daughter and I hope she plays, if she wants. She can come here and get excited.
‘There is one important part of the women’s strategy at the SFA. Success is to be in a position to qualify consistently for major tournaments.
‘You can qualify once and then disappear because you had one generation of stars. We need to do more than that. Then we can inspire a new generation to create new opportunities.’
Always intending to challenge himself at national team level — and with a good impression of Scottish players from his time at Arsenal — Martinez Losa sees genuine potential in the current squad, who play their first World
Cup qualifier against Hungary in Budapest on Friday night.
Looking beyond these borders, he’s now just one of many coaches working with players who have grown up knowing that a career in football — once the sole preserve of men — is a possibility.
He considers himself lucky to be a witness to these changes, drawing on his experience as an assistant coach with the Western New York Flash, where he saw the women’s game take off in the USA.
‘You come back to Europe and you see it changing, too,’ he insisted. ‘I can give you examples of players who were told not to play football because it’s for boys. Now that has changed. And we can build on that.’
There will still be parents wary of letting their daughters dream; the natural desire to protect our kids from disappointment is often the greatest break on ambition.
In households across Scotland, then, conversations about opportunities will inevitably be tempered with advice to follow their studies. The brightest and best will be able to do both; Chelsea and Scotland star Erin Cuthbert combines playing with studying for an MBA.
Even those who might get bounced into full-time education and advised to let football take a back seat shouldn’t worry, however. Passion always finds a way.