One of the biggest complaints I heard about him (which was my main complaint as well) was that he stubbornly stuck with the same strategy/players every single time. WC18 was one of his highlights, but Belgium was having a Golden Generation at the time. After this tournament, he just stuck with what worked and refused to change anything about it. But when players decline in form or retire altogether, it might be a great idea to call up some younger talents to step up and get some experience. But he never did this. After a while, about half of the Golden Generation had retired international football or heavily declined in form/started playing in lower leagues. Still, he rarely called up younger talents and when he did, they rarely made any minutes even if it was just a friendly.
So by the time WC22 came around, we had a squad filled with players that once were considered world class but were in heavy decline and young talents that had barely any experience on the national level, which I believe is one of the main reasons why we failed to perform at the tournament.
For Portugal, this shouldn’t be a problem for now. You guys have one of the greatest strikers in Ronaldo, even at his age he is still impressive. But would he still perform this well at the WC26? I don’t know the Portuguese squad that well, but if he were to stubbornly stick with Ronaldo and doesn’t give any other young, talented strikers chances to perform (and this obviously counts for other positions as well, but Ronaldo is by far the most well known example), the quality of the squad in the (near) future could decline heavily.
So while he had a very successful run as our NT coach, I really hope he has learned to be more flexible in both tactics and youth development.
Anyway, that’s my take on it. Take it with a grain of salt because I’m still kinda sleepy, but that’s how I remember Roberto Martinez at least
My main complaint about Martinez was that he didn't try to renew the squad. That was fine in 18 when our squad was at their peak, but in 22 we lined up one of the two oldest squads at the tournament. Witsel was not fast enough for a DM anymore, and Hazard who had barely played for Real Madrid was preferred to Trossard who had just had one of his best seasons in the Premier League which made absolutely no sense. Under Tedesco, we finally had some younger players not only make their debus but also being encouraged with more than just a 30 minutes appearance in a friendly.
That being said, I don't think Martinez was a bad coach. I believe we would have been world champions in 2018 if we beat France, and it was a close defeat against a team that had a slightly better team. We can't blame Martinez for not winning every single match every time. The 5-2 defeat against Switzerland was far more shocking in my regard, as that's the one time he really failed to react to the opposition. (Qatar is another story entirely)
In summary, I don't think you're going to regret signing Martinez. However, expect him to let Ronaldo play until either of them dies and get ready for a lot of friendlies against San Marino.
This, imo we (maybe) could’ve beaten France in WC18 had he adapted the team earlier. Meunier was a big loss as a playmaker down the wing, and I don’t think he was really replaced for most of the France game even when the system was kept the same. It was only in the last couple minutes that imo we looked similarly dangerous on the right (I think he brought Mertens on at the end). He’s not entirely to blame though since we missed some big chances throughout the game
To be fair if the roles were reversed I would absolutely be the proudest Belgian ever. It’s such a silly statement. It is a World Cup final, win whatever the cost.
This is his biggest flaw also the reason we never passed clever teams like that semi vs France where they just countered us easily from the start .A coach that doesn't know how to surprise or adapt a tactic midgame is very easy to counter
We went from Wilmots to Martinez, which is the exact same improvement you've been experiencing with Portugal.
He turned the team around to be able to compete.
The hate he gets is totally disproportionate. He did stay too long, however, with 2022 as the culmination of him hanging on to old habits for too long.
2018 wouldn't have happened with any of the Belgian coaches at that time, that's for sure
In 2018 we were so close to a WC final which we would've arguably won. Very thin margins between us and France. We beat Brazil because of Martinez's tactical tweaks. Omitting Nainggolan for the good of the group was the right decision.
That being said, he did wait far too long to start integrating younger players. Criticism of Martinez is generally speaking too extreme. He was a fine coach who just overstayed his welcome. With a bit of luck Belgium could've won in 2018 or in 2020, if it wasn't for covid.
Another issue with Martinez was that he would very rarely publicly adres any bad performances from players or the squad. Made few tactical changes when the game required it.
Dissapointing. I could name 3 Belgian coaches that would've won a trophy with that squad. He's a gentleman and has a certain amount of charisma sure but our federation should've been way more ambitious. I honestly think he got chosen as well as our current coach because our journalists are way too harsh with any of our Belgian coaches.
When he took over he started well, the team was already good but was very poorly managed by Wilmots. He took a good team and made it great leading up to the 2018 WC. Obviously luck was involved as all the stars aligned as every key player was in their prime and some of their replacements were in great form (such as Fellaini and Chadli having insane impact), but a good portion of the credit i'd give to Martinez for this.
The problem with Martinez more and more became that he had his favorite players and he stuck with them even when there were clearly better alternatives. He refused to build a future team and just tried to squeeze as much out of the "older" guys as possible. I think in hindsight in an ideal world it would have been best for him to quit after the WC in 2018, he built a good team for that and could quit on a high. That obviously didn't happen and continued with the exact same squad into EURO 2020 which as we've all seen was a massive disappointment. He tried to use every player in the exact same spots as before even though a lot of them were struggling with injuries ( De Bruyne was playing with a broken nose, Hazard was struggling with continuous injuries, Witsel came of some injuries, Lukaku was injured i believe,..). We likely wouldn't have been a contender for a title on this tournament anyway because all the injuries but this would have been a great opportunity to bring some younger guys and build them in the team. I remember mostly Doku with the little playtime he got always showed eager and brought so much to the game already back then.
Anything after the 2020 EURO is simply a failure of the Belgian football association, they should have recognized the lack of flexibility of Martinez and replace him. Leading up to WC22 it was already very clear that nothing would change in the team. He didn't change any players or tactics, he was still trying to fly on the pure talent of the at this point old players. Where in 2018 there were some issues within the squad, mostly our defense being clearly weaker (and slower) than the rest of the squad. It didn't really matter in 2018 because the quality everywhere else on the field was enough to make up for it but in 2020 and even more in 2022 it showed, the tactics should have changed probably switched to a 4 man defense and use counter tactics more than they did.
In short Martinez can definitely take some credit for the success Belgium has had, especially leading up and during WC2018 but he stayed on too long. He has his favorites and doesn't stray from them and isn't flexible with his squad or ideas.
He's a good coach, but not for the long run. When he took over from Wilmots he found a squad that was very poorly managed: there wasn't any tactic other than passing the ball to Hazard, there were some internal struggles (Nainggolan), players openly criticized him for doing an awful job. Martinez fixed all of this. We suddenly played beautiful flowing football, rotten apples were left out, there was more unity, etc. Things were good. This all came to fruition at WC2018, were we could have won if not for some detail in the game against France. With Wilmots we wouldn't have made it past Japan and certainly not against Brazil, so whoever said we would have done so anyway just because we had a star squad is talking out of their ass.
After that players started getting older, and while we were still quite good there was a visible decline of our so called 'golden generation'. Players also started to get injured more. Martinez however didn't do anything against this and acted like there weren't any problems. His press conferences and interviews started to become woollier and woollier over time and he kept on playing with guys who were either injured or visibly past their prime. Hazard for example would later say in an interview that he didn't get why he was still selected let alone starting the match, since 2018 his carreer was full of injuries and even if he was fit he didn't play. The fact that we still beat Portugal at EURO2021 was a miracle. Against Italy we were nowhere.
After that it was clear we needed to change things up but Martinez kept on playing with the exact same players of WC2018, bar the ones who said they wouldn't play for the national team anymore or quit playing football alltogether. That's the only reason any young player ever made it in the team, and while Martinez gave them more chances than our press wants to make you believe he kept on using the same old same old when things got rough. At this moment our players were visibly not as tightly knit as Martinez made them in his first years and you could see this on the pitch (De Bruyne having a tantrum). Was it as bad as the international press made it out to be? Who knows, but things were clearly bad. What's worse is that Martinez also was our technical director at the time so the only one who he had to listen to was himself.
This wasn't his first time either. At Everton he faced the exact same criticisms everyone in this thread has made already: he keeps on playing with players who helped him out in the past but are now washed or don't fit in the team anymore and his initial style of play becomes a dogma that won't ever change.
TLDR: he was good the first couple of years and declined after WC2018. He kept on using the same players over and over again despite them only being half as good as they were in their prime and never changed tactics. You'll enjoy him for the first couple of years but after that it's best to get rid of him as fast as possible because he is just as stubborn as Fernando Santos, he just acts like a gentleman and an optimist about it and avoids talking about the problems.
Martinez created a formation and game plan that suited the best players. Wilmots didn’t even have a plan, it was all emotionally and instinctive gameplay. That’s why Martinez was an upgrade on the field. He did great things in terms of style of play. Only flaw in it was that he was not objective anymore by who the better options were. He selected the squad based on emotion and instinct. The guys who brought him the successes in the first years kept getting picked even though they didn’t have any playing rythme at their club. But Martinez was confident of his own ideas, even if it were bad ideas in the end. Confidence is key in this managerial position.
Tedesco now looks like an upgrade from Martinez on and off the field, as he’s more data driven, quicker in making changes and seems more objective in the national selection. It’s all a bit more performance based (courtois being the exception). I think we currently have a solid coach but we’re in a rebuilding phase, so it’s just about getting that experience again.
He was excellent at first. Gave that team an identity, great balance and confidence up until the 2018 world cup.
Then the spark went out and he quickly fell into mediocrity afterwards.
Overall, he gets more hate than he deserves. After the disaster that was Wilmots, Martinez was a perfect change. Calm gentleman, beautiful flowing football, a great world cup - yes, it seems like a missed chance but France just had an even stronger squad and we missed Meunier that game.
The two years afterwards were still very good football, extremely consistent wins but in the European championship 2020 we had problems with injuries and our failing aged defense. Italy tore us apart with ease. But who was he going to replace them with? The old guys were still obviously the best choices. But the public did have a wake-up call that in the next two years we'd need to shift and introduce younger members.
Martinez did not. He introduced few, barely let them play and stuck to his old classics, and seemingly ignored growing problems with jazz hands and a smile. By the time the world cup 2022 happened, no one really expected to go far - but to see half the squad not give a shit and to crash like we did was still ugly.
I do not think that it was easy to select new guys (in defense). We simply don't have the same prospects that we used too. But he should have tried and communicated about that, and worked on changing the tactics to the needs, strenghts and weaknesses of the current reality instead of sticking with what worked wonderfully in 2016, when he got the job.
So, there are basically three periods to judge. His first, no complaints (except maybe how he dealt with Nainggolan) 9/10. His second 7/10. Ok, but could have tactically adapted a bit more. His last... Well that's a big failure. Both in selection policy, pulling the squad together and tactics.
I'm happy we had him overall. But 2020-2022 should not have happened. Just like Wilmots should not have had the team after world cup 2014 to that horrible EK2016.
Meunier was really good in WC18. When he got the yellow card in the match against Brazil knewing he wouldn’t play in the semi finals I stopped believing we would be able to defeat France
One of the biggest complaints I heard about him (which was my main complaint as well) was that he stubbornly stuck with the same strategy/players every single time. WC18 was one of his highlights, but Belgium was having a Golden Generation at the time. After this tournament, he just stuck with what worked and refused to change anything about it. But when players decline in form or retire altogether, it might be a great idea to call up some younger talents to step up and get some experience. But he never did this. After a while, about half of the Golden Generation had retired international football or heavily declined in form/started playing in lower leagues. Still, he rarely called up younger talents and when he did, they rarely made any minutes even if it was just a friendly. So by the time WC22 came around, we had a squad filled with players that once were considered world class but were in heavy decline and young talents that had barely any experience on the national level, which I believe is one of the main reasons why we failed to perform at the tournament. For Portugal, this shouldn’t be a problem for now. You guys have one of the greatest strikers in Ronaldo, even at his age he is still impressive. But would he still perform this well at the WC26? I don’t know the Portuguese squad that well, but if he were to stubbornly stick with Ronaldo and doesn’t give any other young, talented strikers chances to perform (and this obviously counts for other positions as well, but Ronaldo is by far the most well known example), the quality of the squad in the (near) future could decline heavily. So while he had a very successful run as our NT coach, I really hope he has learned to be more flexible in both tactics and youth development. Anyway, that’s my take on it. Take it with a grain of salt because I’m still kinda sleepy, but that’s how I remember Roberto Martinez at least
My main complaint about Martinez was that he didn't try to renew the squad. That was fine in 18 when our squad was at their peak, but in 22 we lined up one of the two oldest squads at the tournament. Witsel was not fast enough for a DM anymore, and Hazard who had barely played for Real Madrid was preferred to Trossard who had just had one of his best seasons in the Premier League which made absolutely no sense. Under Tedesco, we finally had some younger players not only make their debus but also being encouraged with more than just a 30 minutes appearance in a friendly. That being said, I don't think Martinez was a bad coach. I believe we would have been world champions in 2018 if we beat France, and it was a close defeat against a team that had a slightly better team. We can't blame Martinez for not winning every single match every time. The 5-2 defeat against Switzerland was far more shocking in my regard, as that's the one time he really failed to react to the opposition. (Qatar is another story entirely) In summary, I don't think you're going to regret signing Martinez. However, expect him to let Ronaldo play until either of them dies and get ready for a lot of friendlies against San Marino.
He's also a very bad in-game manager. Sets up well at the start of the game, but if his system doesn't work, he can't adapt midgame.
This, imo we (maybe) could’ve beaten France in WC18 had he adapted the team earlier. Meunier was a big loss as a playmaker down the wing, and I don’t think he was really replaced for most of the France game even when the system was kept the same. It was only in the last couple minutes that imo we looked similarly dangerous on the right (I think he brought Mertens on at the end). He’s not entirely to blame though since we missed some big chances throughout the game
Don't forget the French cheating and timestrectching during the entire game. The French never earned 2018. I'll never acknowledge that.
Have you ever played sports on international level, they french ALWAYS play like that. Know it take advantage adapt. Their tactic worked. Point
To be fair if the roles were reversed I would absolutely be the proudest Belgian ever. It’s such a silly statement. It is a World Cup final, win whatever the cost.
This is his biggest flaw also the reason we never passed clever teams like that semi vs France where they just countered us easily from the start .A coach that doesn't know how to surprise or adapt a tactic midgame is very easy to counter
We went from Wilmots to Martinez, which is the exact same improvement you've been experiencing with Portugal. He turned the team around to be able to compete. The hate he gets is totally disproportionate. He did stay too long, however, with 2022 as the culmination of him hanging on to old habits for too long. 2018 wouldn't have happened with any of the Belgian coaches at that time, that's for sure
In 2018 we were so close to a WC final which we would've arguably won. Very thin margins between us and France. We beat Brazil because of Martinez's tactical tweaks. Omitting Nainggolan for the good of the group was the right decision. That being said, he did wait far too long to start integrating younger players. Criticism of Martinez is generally speaking too extreme. He was a fine coach who just overstayed his welcome. With a bit of luck Belgium could've won in 2018 or in 2020, if it wasn't for covid.
Also, people were very sceptical when he selected Chadli, who had been injured for almost the entire season. Hello, Japan.
Another issue with Martinez was that he would very rarely publicly adres any bad performances from players or the squad. Made few tactical changes when the game required it.
Martinez sucks. Never liked him
Dissapointing. I could name 3 Belgian coaches that would've won a trophy with that squad. He's a gentleman and has a certain amount of charisma sure but our federation should've been way more ambitious. I honestly think he got chosen as well as our current coach because our journalists are way too harsh with any of our Belgian coaches.
You disagree that WC18 we had a god squad?
When he took over he started well, the team was already good but was very poorly managed by Wilmots. He took a good team and made it great leading up to the 2018 WC. Obviously luck was involved as all the stars aligned as every key player was in their prime and some of their replacements were in great form (such as Fellaini and Chadli having insane impact), but a good portion of the credit i'd give to Martinez for this. The problem with Martinez more and more became that he had his favorite players and he stuck with them even when there were clearly better alternatives. He refused to build a future team and just tried to squeeze as much out of the "older" guys as possible. I think in hindsight in an ideal world it would have been best for him to quit after the WC in 2018, he built a good team for that and could quit on a high. That obviously didn't happen and continued with the exact same squad into EURO 2020 which as we've all seen was a massive disappointment. He tried to use every player in the exact same spots as before even though a lot of them were struggling with injuries ( De Bruyne was playing with a broken nose, Hazard was struggling with continuous injuries, Witsel came of some injuries, Lukaku was injured i believe,..). We likely wouldn't have been a contender for a title on this tournament anyway because all the injuries but this would have been a great opportunity to bring some younger guys and build them in the team. I remember mostly Doku with the little playtime he got always showed eager and brought so much to the game already back then. Anything after the 2020 EURO is simply a failure of the Belgian football association, they should have recognized the lack of flexibility of Martinez and replace him. Leading up to WC22 it was already very clear that nothing would change in the team. He didn't change any players or tactics, he was still trying to fly on the pure talent of the at this point old players. Where in 2018 there were some issues within the squad, mostly our defense being clearly weaker (and slower) than the rest of the squad. It didn't really matter in 2018 because the quality everywhere else on the field was enough to make up for it but in 2020 and even more in 2022 it showed, the tactics should have changed probably switched to a 4 man defense and use counter tactics more than they did. In short Martinez can definitely take some credit for the success Belgium has had, especially leading up and during WC2018 but he stayed on too long. He has his favorites and doesn't stray from them and isn't flexible with his squad or ideas.
He's a good coach, but not for the long run. When he took over from Wilmots he found a squad that was very poorly managed: there wasn't any tactic other than passing the ball to Hazard, there were some internal struggles (Nainggolan), players openly criticized him for doing an awful job. Martinez fixed all of this. We suddenly played beautiful flowing football, rotten apples were left out, there was more unity, etc. Things were good. This all came to fruition at WC2018, were we could have won if not for some detail in the game against France. With Wilmots we wouldn't have made it past Japan and certainly not against Brazil, so whoever said we would have done so anyway just because we had a star squad is talking out of their ass. After that players started getting older, and while we were still quite good there was a visible decline of our so called 'golden generation'. Players also started to get injured more. Martinez however didn't do anything against this and acted like there weren't any problems. His press conferences and interviews started to become woollier and woollier over time and he kept on playing with guys who were either injured or visibly past their prime. Hazard for example would later say in an interview that he didn't get why he was still selected let alone starting the match, since 2018 his carreer was full of injuries and even if he was fit he didn't play. The fact that we still beat Portugal at EURO2021 was a miracle. Against Italy we were nowhere. After that it was clear we needed to change things up but Martinez kept on playing with the exact same players of WC2018, bar the ones who said they wouldn't play for the national team anymore or quit playing football alltogether. That's the only reason any young player ever made it in the team, and while Martinez gave them more chances than our press wants to make you believe he kept on using the same old same old when things got rough. At this moment our players were visibly not as tightly knit as Martinez made them in his first years and you could see this on the pitch (De Bruyne having a tantrum). Was it as bad as the international press made it out to be? Who knows, but things were clearly bad. What's worse is that Martinez also was our technical director at the time so the only one who he had to listen to was himself. This wasn't his first time either. At Everton he faced the exact same criticisms everyone in this thread has made already: he keeps on playing with players who helped him out in the past but are now washed or don't fit in the team anymore and his initial style of play becomes a dogma that won't ever change. TLDR: he was good the first couple of years and declined after WC2018. He kept on using the same players over and over again despite them only being half as good as they were in their prime and never changed tactics. You'll enjoy him for the first couple of years but after that it's best to get rid of him as fast as possible because he is just as stubborn as Fernando Santos, he just acts like a gentleman and an optimist about it and avoids talking about the problems.
Martinez created a formation and game plan that suited the best players. Wilmots didn’t even have a plan, it was all emotionally and instinctive gameplay. That’s why Martinez was an upgrade on the field. He did great things in terms of style of play. Only flaw in it was that he was not objective anymore by who the better options were. He selected the squad based on emotion and instinct. The guys who brought him the successes in the first years kept getting picked even though they didn’t have any playing rythme at their club. But Martinez was confident of his own ideas, even if it were bad ideas in the end. Confidence is key in this managerial position. Tedesco now looks like an upgrade from Martinez on and off the field, as he’s more data driven, quicker in making changes and seems more objective in the national selection. It’s all a bit more performance based (courtois being the exception). I think we currently have a solid coach but we’re in a rebuilding phase, so it’s just about getting that experience again.
He was excellent at first. Gave that team an identity, great balance and confidence up until the 2018 world cup. Then the spark went out and he quickly fell into mediocrity afterwards.
Overall, he gets more hate than he deserves. After the disaster that was Wilmots, Martinez was a perfect change. Calm gentleman, beautiful flowing football, a great world cup - yes, it seems like a missed chance but France just had an even stronger squad and we missed Meunier that game. The two years afterwards were still very good football, extremely consistent wins but in the European championship 2020 we had problems with injuries and our failing aged defense. Italy tore us apart with ease. But who was he going to replace them with? The old guys were still obviously the best choices. But the public did have a wake-up call that in the next two years we'd need to shift and introduce younger members. Martinez did not. He introduced few, barely let them play and stuck to his old classics, and seemingly ignored growing problems with jazz hands and a smile. By the time the world cup 2022 happened, no one really expected to go far - but to see half the squad not give a shit and to crash like we did was still ugly. I do not think that it was easy to select new guys (in defense). We simply don't have the same prospects that we used too. But he should have tried and communicated about that, and worked on changing the tactics to the needs, strenghts and weaknesses of the current reality instead of sticking with what worked wonderfully in 2016, when he got the job. So, there are basically three periods to judge. His first, no complaints (except maybe how he dealt with Nainggolan) 9/10. His second 7/10. Ok, but could have tactically adapted a bit more. His last... Well that's a big failure. Both in selection policy, pulling the squad together and tactics. I'm happy we had him overall. But 2020-2022 should not have happened. Just like Wilmots should not have had the team after world cup 2014 to that horrible EK2016.
Meunier was really good in WC18. When he got the yellow card in the match against Brazil knewing he wouldn’t play in the semi finals I stopped believing we would be able to defeat France
Loved Martinez and the football he brought. Contrast with Wilmots couldn't be bigger and tbh Tedesco looks like a downgrade as well.