Antón Martínez

Antonio Manuel Martínez Morales (born 19 October 1944) is a Spanish former footballer who played as a left back.

He made 219 La Liga appearances for Betis and Valencia, winning the title with the latter in 1971, and added 88 Segunda División games for Betis and Real Valladolid. He played five games for Spain between 1969 and 1971.

Club career Martínez was born in Bilbao in the Basque Country and raised in Barbate in Andalusia. He began playing for local club Chinar de Barbate before joining Real Betis, starting in their reserve team of Triana.

In 1964–65, Martínez played in the Betis first team in La Liga, on a 150,000 Spanish peseta contract with bonuses of 5,000 per match. In February 1969, he transferred to Valencia for 700,000 pesetas, with his salary increasing to 1.2 million for his first full season. In 1976 he left for Real Valladolid of Segunda División, where he earned his highest salary of 2 million pesetas despite playing in a lower league.

Martínez's other four caps for his country came in 1971. His final game was a UEFA Euro 1972 qualifier against the Soviet Union on 27 October, incidentally at the same venue and same result as his debut; the result eliminated Spain from the competition.

Style of play As a defender, Martínez was physically strong and could clear the ball with his feet and head. He frequently ran with the ball into wide attacking positions to cross the ball into the opposing penalty area.

Having begun his career with tactics to simply clear the ball from his team's defence, Martínez was trained by Valencia manager Alfredo Di Stéfano to play more passes and dribble the ball down the wing. Spain manager László Kubala praised Martínez's attacking attributes, but said that he had to mark his opponents better defensively.

Martínez was known at Valencia for being fined for arriving late to training. Fines were put together to pay for end-of-season meals, and his provided 80% of the entire budget.