Javi Martinez tells his Bayern Munich club he is a lucky guy.
It is not a boast about his high salary. Nor is it his happy return from grave injury just in time to make an impact on the matches, which decide whether it will be a great season for the club or just a campaign that goes on as usual, with domestic successes to celebrate.
No, he means they should look to him for the lucky breaks that make the difference in tight contests. He reckons fortune tends to smile on him, more than others, if Bayern have a corner, or an attacking free-kick, for instance.
He tells them they should make him the target of a cross or a pass.
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It worked against Benfica in the quarter-finals of the Uefa Champions League. Bayern were not enjoying a comfortable passage through the last eight against the Lisbon club. Martinez went up from his position in central defence for a set-piece. He won his header, and Thomas Muller finished off the move for a 2-1 lead.
That earned Bayern their place in the competition's last four for the fifth year on the trot, and they meet Atletico Madrid Wednesday night at the Vicente Calderon stadium in the first leg of their joust for a berth in the Milan final.
Bayern manager Pep Guardiola is relieved to have Martinez, 27, available. At 1.90m tall, Martinez is a handy target man not because high balls seek him out by a whim of the breeze. His potency as part of Bayern’s attacking arsenal looks all the stronger if, as anticipated, Diego Godin, Atletico’s strongest defender has not recovered from a hamstring problem.
The absence of key defenders has been Bayern’s problem, not the phenomenally fortified Atletico’s, for much of the season.
Long-term injuries have denied Guardiola for various phases the services of Holger Badstuber, Medhi Benatia and Jerome Boateng. Martinez missed all of August, February and March, the latter two months with a knee problem he had initially feared would end his season.
Bayern bought him almost four years ago from Athletic Bilbao, paying a then club record of €45 million (Dh186.4m). Injuries have delayed the full payback of that investment but, under Guardiola, Bayern’s head coach since 2013, the versatility and authority the German champions identified in Martinez has come to the fore.
At Athletic, he was principally a midfielder. At Bayern he is a defender whose passing range and comfort on the ball are key to their possession football and Guardiola’s desire to also have the option of quick counter-attacks.
“Longer passes are an important part of our game,” Martinez said ahead of the semi-finals, “and it’s been a privilege for me to have worked with Guardiola.”
He has been encouraged that the Spanish Football Federation was in regular touch with him during his last long period of rehabilitation, checking his fitness for Euro 2016.
Two other members of the Bayern squad have an eye on representing Spain in France this summer. Thiago Alcantara, who has also suffered fitness setbacks, will hope to have a major role against Atletico.
Juan Bernat, the left-back, would not be so optimistic of a place in Guardiola’s starting line-up, although he is in the frame for Euro 2016.
Bayern’s Spanish armada has another senior member. Xabi Alonso, a World Cup winner and double European champion with Spain, has retired from internationals.
What he has not done is retired from Champions League finals. He is overdue one, having lost at the semi-final stage in four of the last five years. In 2014, while at Real Madrid, he was suspended for the final.
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