“Is he the new Zidane?” asked Le Parisien on June 7, 2011, the day after the double scored by Marvin Martin with the France team against Ukraine in a friendly match. During this 4-1 success for the Blues, the then 23-year-old impressed everyone in just fifteen minutes of play, highlighted by two goals and an assist for his first selection. A performance which quickly earned him comparison with “Zizou”, also a double scorer during his debut for Blue against the Czech Republic, in 1994 in Bordeaux.
A great talent at Sochaux, Martin ultimately did not confirm all the hopes placed in him, playing in Lille, Dijon, Reims and Chambly. Today, he is completing his coaching diplomas in Hyères but has not forgotten his early career, which was very exposed in the media. Guest on Wednesday evening on the Génération After show on RMC, he returned to the flattering comparison with Zinédine Zidane. Which has become a very heavy weight to carry.
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“I haven’t suffered from it, but it doesn’t help. I put myself in a shell. Zidane was my idol. The level of expectations among people was no longer the same. Being compared to Zidane was too much, he admitted. I had already spent several years in Ligue 1 but the comparison was enormous. I withdrew into myself, that served me more than anything else.”
Close to becoming a coach, the former Sochalien knows better than anyone that the pressure can become insurmountable for young players.
“Even today, we are starting young people ever younger, the problem is that we have to know how to protect them. Signing pro should not be an outcome, he explained. There are a lot of people who sign and who we don’t see much afterwards. It’s complicated, you have to be mentally strong, even more so with social networks. Before there were several steps, you had to start by making your place to have the right to be in the locker room. It’s going much faster today. Be careful.”