Words Andrew Lawn
Wigan, in the north-west of England is a long way, both geographically, meteorologically and culturally from Balaguer in north-eastern Spain.
Roberto Martinez made the move from one to the other at just 21. It felt, he told us, like “going to the moon”. But, having been enticed to Springfield Park by Wigan chairman Dave Whelan, along with fellow Spaniards Isidro Díaz and Jesús Seba, Martinez laid the foundations for a career that has brought him trophies, international acclaim and finally back to the Iberian peninsula, via four years at the top of the world in Belgium.
“My football career really developed in the British game. When I joined Wigan, I couldn’t speak a word of English and I didn’t know anything about the north-west. All I knew about English football was what we saw on TV in Spain, which was basically just the FA Cup Final”.
“Once I made the move to the UK, I think I became curious. When you move out of your comfort zone and encounter something new, you get a fear and your instinct is to say ‘no’. When you start to go the opposite way and say ‘yes, why not?’, you open yourself to new things and you become curious about life. I think making the move early in my life taught me to say ‘why not?’”.
Despite little knowledge of Britain before he arrived, Martinez found success. Six years as a player at Wigan included a 3rd Division title and PFA Team of the Year inclusion. After over 200 games in the north-west, Martinez had brief spells at Motherwell and Walsall, then a longer spell at the base of Swansea’s midfield, before finishing his playing career at Chester City.
Martinez’s playing days ended when he was offered the manager role back at Swansea. Initially expecting to combine coaching with playing, Martinez soon realised that to be successful at one, he had to stop the other. He was now following in the footsteps of his father, who’d been the manager of his local team back in Catalonia.
“They might have been a local team, but the way he managed them was so professional. I remember watching games and he would never say ‘oh, what a good goal’, instead, he said ‘why did that goal happen? Was it the numerical advantage?’ As a young kid I was already thinking in the same way as a manager. So it was only natural really that it would happen”.
The move to the dugout went well. Under Martinez Swansea won League One, taking the Welsh side back into the second-tier for the first time in over two decades. They adjusted to life at a higher level well and finished comfortably in the top-half, a few points shy of the play-offs.
Scottish giants Glasgow Celtic asked Swansea if they could speak to him about a move to Celtic Park, but Wigan chairman, Dave Whelan, the man behind Martinez’s initial move to the UK 14 years earlier, called to make Martinez an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“He called and said, ‘you’re coming here for four years. If we get relegated, you’re still going to be my manager in the Championship. If we get relegated the next year too, you’re going to be my manager in League One’. I thought ‘wow’. I didn’t feel any pressure, because I knew that if I made a bad decision, I would get the chance to learn from it and not make it again. That was the strength of that club. It’s why we kept Wigan in the Premier League for eight years, won the FA Cup and played European football, because the club had a vision and stuck with it”.
True to Whelan’s word, Martinez remained in the Wigan dugout for four years, before moving to Everton to replace David Moyes. In his first season at Goodison Park, Martinez took the Toffees to 5th. The next season, 2014-15, was tougher, resulting in a solid mid-table position and a run to the Europa League last 16. A similar 2015-16 season, included FA Cup and League Cup semi finals, but finding themselves 12th, Martinez was sacked with one game left.
With that, Martinez’s domestic managerial duties were done and he made the move into international football with Belgium. Initially, he struggled with the differences between the day-to-day life of a club manager, with the more sporadic - but intense - life as an international Head Coach.
“It was difficult going from seeing the players everyday and having that involvement because you develop very strong relationships with your players. After seven years in the Premier League, that was very natural. As you can imagine, when you are working in that way, everything is about tomorrow and how to prepare for the next game. It is very demanding and you don’t really get the opportunity to look back”.
“Then I went into international football and that was hard, because I wanted to work with the same intensity. I expected the way I dealt with players to be the same and you soon realise it isn’t and it can not be. You learn to accept they’re completely different”.
“I always enjoy managing through aspiration, and international football is all about aspiration and inspiration. You want to represent your nation. Your friends, your family, they always keep reminding you how proud they are of seeing the kid that was playing on the streets, representing the national team in a major tournament. That is an incredible feeling, but it is also more intense, because you have 24 hours a day with each other and you have to deal with the emotions of a whole nation, they’re winning and losing with you”.
“But, then you also have a lot of time in between the games, where you can look back. After a victory, or a defeat, I enjoy looking back at past performances and seeing what you can learn and how you can grow together. I really enjoy this way of working”.
High expectations and an external sense that failing to win a trophy would be a waste of a golden Belgian generation, heaped pressure on Martinez, which grew with each passing tournament exit. Martinez doesn’t see it that way though and points to the remarkable progress the country made, including four years at the top of the FIFA World Rankings.
“In 2009 Belgium were ranked 60th in the world. The country has a population of only 11 million, so to be number 1 in the world for four of the seven years I was there is a great credit to the players. The challenge for us when we reached number 1 was ‘how do we maintain this level’?”
Martinez sees parallels between Belgium and Portugal. They are similar sized nations, but rather than try and stay there, Portugal are striving to reach the top. Martinez thinks they have all the building blocks in place to do so. It is something that drew him to the job.
“Belgium had about 50 players in the top five leagues. Portugal has 82, plus we have the sixth best league. The population may only be 10.3 million, but football-wise, the way they develop young players is clearly the best in Europe, maybe in world football”.
“We have a great structure in place, where players can go through from 17 and 18. We have a national u19 league, then you have u23s and 1st teams where players are given the chance. At a national level, we also have great former internationals in Helder Postiga (u19), Pauleta (u21) and João Pinto in the 1st team. It gives you a real connection all the way through”.
“You need players with the right mindset to make the most of the opportunities of course, and I think we have that. The Portuguese are great travellers and that is reflected in their footballers, who are important players in the biggest dressing rooms around the world. They are open-minded, and speak two or three languages. It is incredible to see that evolution”.
“The opportunity to come to Portugal made total sense. This is a group of players that I can understand and use the experiences that I had moving to the UK. My football career developed in the British game, so coming here is almost going back to my roots. It has been fascinating to come and find out about the culture of Portuguese football”.
As Martinez speaks his enthusiasm and excitement for the challenge ahead shines through and you sense a real optimism for what might come next. As Martinez himself notes, there are quality players and a raft of options everywhere he looks.
“I think you are always looking at building teams around your own ideas, but in modern football you need to be flexible and have as many tools to work with as possible. I think football has evolved and the time of having a very specific, set way of playing is probably not right for this moment. There will always be one goalkeeper and 10 players, so things don’t change, but they do evolve. Now, you have to be tactically flexible and able to play different ways, at different times, sometimes in the same game”.
“Portuguese culture seems to develop players who are complete. This group of players can out possess you, it can defend solidly, it can play counter-attack, they find solutions to problems, so the options are endless. The problem is that you can only use 23 players”.
Only 23 players. “Only”. The word lingers. Given the big characters, who’ve delivered huge performances again and again for their country, you sense Martinez could have a challenge on his hands fitting the likes of Pepe and Cristiano Ronaldo in, while keeping everybody happy. And, he knows it.
“When you're in the national team you have a group of players that aren’t going to change very much. You can’t change your nationality, so they’re here for the duration. That’s a very strong bond. We have three groups of players that we follow. One group, if they are fit, will be in the squad. Then there’s a group who can make squads when they’re performing at a good level for the clubs, and finally we have a third group of players that we recognise have outstanding quality and need to follow despite them not making a squad before. The players are in the best leagues in the world, so the information on them is really good”.
“When they make the squad, we all want to have good experiences, and have players that are developing to reach their maximum and for that you need a competitive environment that pushes the players to the next level. We need to challenge each other to be in that position and create a high-performance environment. Every player there has to show that they are at the level to play”.
“When assessing players, you never look at the age. You look at three things; talent, experience and attitude. Between those three you come up with their value to the team and you make a decision based on that. Never age. Never just talent. Never just experience. You need to bring the whole package”.
“Attitude is the most important, because the right attitude multiplies talent and experience. It can test you as a professional and is sometimes difficult for players who are the main players in their club dressing rooms to come into the national team and play a different role, but you must come and be part of the team. We have more players than places, so not everybody can be in the 23, so you have to show you have what it takes to play for Portugal”.
“No other player in world football has achieved what Cristiano has achieved in making so many appearances for Portugal. So, a player like that brings great experience, he displays a great mental resilience and offers something to the young players that I don’t think we can as coaches. So, a player like that, or like Pepe, they are 40 years old, but they add value - if they are at their best level to contribute to the national team. That goes for every player and every position”.
“I think one of the things we underestimate when looking at the decisions managers make, is how much thought goes into it. No manager wakes up in the morning and just makes a decision. They are working with the players everyday at training, seeing how they train, how they interact with each other, all of those provide the signs and they point a manager to a decision. I learned very quickly in international football that you can’t really try to guess what’s going to happen in the future because it’s totally unpredictable. But, I love it”.
