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Josef Martinez has officially become Inter Milan’s youngest player. The Italian champions have signed the Spanish defender, who joined the black and white team from Genoa after a very good season on a personal level. Inter Milan not only announced the official appointment, but also made public the entire journey of the 26-year-old player through a letter.
“Football is a difficult sport to explain: technique and tactics are fundamental factors, but instinct and feeling often have an impact. It is these components that mark the career of the now “black” goalkeeper Josep Martínez.
Born on May 27, 1998 in Alzira, Valencia, little “Pepo” has never been separated from the ball since he was 3 years old. This passion closely links him to his father. This example is clear: the instinct that drives Martinez to fall to the ground with the ball repeatedly, it is an innate feeling, a courage that cannot be taught: Josep wants to catch the ball at all costs, even breaking his fingers.
At the age of 5, he joined the Alzira youth team, imitating Santiago Cañizares and idolizing Iker Casillas. He played for his hometown team for 12 years and was discovered by Barcelona in a youth tournament when he was 17. In 2015, he arrived in Barcelona, where he spent two years learning a new style of play, in which goalkeeping became part of the construction.
In 2017, he moved to Las Palmas, played two seasons in the C-League as a starter in Gran Canaria’s second team, and made his debut in the Spanish Second Division in the 2018/19 season. The following season, he finally got a starting position in the first team: his outstanding performance attracted the attention of Leipzig, who brought him to Germany in 2020.
Leipzig was the foundational stage of his career, with the great German goalkeeping school allowing him to improve other aspects of his game.
After winning the German Cup in 2022, he moved to Genoa in Serie B. He was inconsistent in the first half of the league, but a brilliant performance in the win over Bari in December saw him get the final possession between the posts. It was a turning point in the season for him and Genoa, who continued to climb the table until they, too, were promoted to Serie A.
In the first Serie A title, Josep amazed everyone with his performance: he kept 8 clean sheets in 36 Serie A games and became one of the protagonists of Genoa’s extraordinary season, which saw Genoa finish 11th with 49 points.
Now, starting in the summer of 2024, the sixth Spaniard in Inter Milan’s history, Josep Martinez, has just begun” – wrote the black club when welcoming the goalkeeper who transferred for 3.5 million euros.
Panorama Network
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