Julian Martinez is a 20-year-old Honduran defender who splits time between left-back and right-back for CD Olimpia. Martinez has 58 senior appearances for Olimpia and has appeared twice for Honduras in international friendlies.
Martinez’s strength is his defensive play. It’s quite rare for Martinez to be beaten 1v1 by dribblers. Martinez is very quick, though has a bit of an awkward running style, and that allows him to recover if he’s caught forward or if the ball is played into space. He’s very good at using his body to shield the ball or win a foul against an attacking player. The typical Julian Martinez defensive play is him winning a foot race, putting his body between the ball and the opponent, and then drawing a foul to end the danger. But there are also problems with his defensive game. Martinez’s positioning gets him into trouble more frequently than you’d hope from a defensive specialist. When stepping forward to make an aggressive intervention he often gets passed around. He’s also a bit inconsistent in the air. He’s not shy of throwing himself into aerial duels but his win rate is not that high, again positioning a bit of a problem here as he’s often not put himself in the best position to win the aerial duel. He’s 6’0 and very slight. When playing as a left-back this can give him a physical advantage against wingers but I don’t know i’d be that confident in him in the middle of a back-four at a higher level.
With the ball, Martinez is not that strong. His first touch is quite good but almost every time he gets the ball he just lobs it forwards. He does occasionally play a line-breaking pass or carry the ball well, so there is the potential for him to develop his on-the-ball ability but he would need a lot of work to play at a decent level. Olimpia push Martinez quite far forward for a player who sometimes plays as a centre-back, he doesn’t tuck in as a 3rd centre-back. When he does get forward I would describe his crossing as “adequate.” Certainly at a higher level you’d probably just keep him as a purely defensive player. But one area I can see him contributing in the attack is his long throws. Martinez was able to get quite a lot of distance on his throws and it was a bit odd Olimpia don’t seem to have more set-plays built around that.
I don’t think Martinez has the potential to reach the top in football. But he has a lot of raw tools that could see him develop into a useful wide centre-back or defensive fullback. Taking a step up might be a challenge as top Central American clubs don’t sell cheaply.
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