It's like the people in the portuguese federation just like to see us, portuguese people, suffer. How we go from Fernando Santos to Fernandez Santos just blows my mind

He is the Alvaro Morata of managers

As a wigan fan I've often wondered what people see in him. He was flavour of the month in the early 2010s but was easily over taken quite quickly. People seemed happy to trade "better football" for Premier league stability but 10 years on I wonder if people would. That being said, my heart will always have a special place for him and I wouldn't trade winning the fa cup for anything

Agree with all of this. However it can't be understated how massive an achievement it is winning the FA Cup with Wigan and for that reason I think the Everton move at the time was warranted.

I expected him to be the new Wales manager considering Page's inexperience and repeated poor tactical decisions and Martinez's links to Wales, but when I saw him land at Portugal I was baffled.

As a miserable Swansea City fan… In the early 2000’s, Roberto Martinez brought exciting possession based football to the club - and arguably the first time that style of football was introduced to the English lower leagues (“Success” in lower league EFL back then was measured by how much you could kick the ****** out of your opponent)… so he was radical at the time, in a good way. Dubbed “Swansealona” and “The Swansea Way” by fans - the philosophy has never really left the club. See Michael Laudrup’s managerial success when Swansea were in the prem - with Michu, Chico, Angel Rangel, Bony etc. Unfortunately, nowadays “possession” football has been found out… So Swansea is a stagnant, Championship club - losing games constantly, but celebrating its 80% possession stats…

Greatest of all time in job interviews

Fellow Belgian here. He did do wonders for the overall organisation of our national football, made it all very professional. Good person too, civil and polite, and he did achieve our best finish ever at the World Cup. However, his refusal to change tactics or experiment with lineups really cost us in the years that followed.

I am Belgian and I think the Roberto Martinez hate is often (too) harsh. While it tends to annoy people, he brought a smaller footballing country to the 1st place in FIFA rankings and kept us there several years. Could’ve realistically won a world cup as the france game could’ve gone either way. Belgium played the best football of any other country in 2018 and he knew exactly what he was doing. Amazingly consistent in qualifying while developing our small generation and being a gentleman. Lowkey Euro 2021 we had the chance of doing something with tiny more luck against italy. Long story short he deserves credit and shouldn’t be remembered for the last 1-2 years were refusing to adapt led to this downfall.

A legend at Wigan for his player and managerial stint. We beat lots of the big teams and of course defied any odds and expectations to win the FA Cup. Our relegation was inevitable. The Everton job was pretty much lined up for him having rejected Aston Villa amongst others while at Wigan. Lukaku was huge for him at Everton. Watch him get the Barcelona job one day.

He was TD of the Belgian FA next to his job as head coach of the NT as well. All other coaches in the Belgian youth NT and female NT are super enthousiastic about him. Apparently he was always open to advise them and help promote the "lesser known" national teams such as for example our womens team. He was also known to attend even the smallest of events like opening new pitches in the sunday leagues etc in order to make football as popular as possible. Next to that i also believe he started a project which made it possible for smaller amateur clubs without big budgets to have access to camera and video reviewing equipment in order to film and analyze their trainings, youth evolution etc. I get where you're coming from. I'm Belgian. Euro 2020, the final four loss vs France after being 2-0 up at half time and especially this WC definitely hurt me bad and left a very sour taste in my mouth. But i'd like to believe he left our football in general in a way better state than we were before he came to Belgium. We're a small nation and we were lucky to have had a whole talented generation in stead of a few single spots with good players but the work he's done here gives hope for more in the future. Maybe we'll bounce back, maybe we won't but the foundation to do so has been laid. The rest is luck.

There probably is something to him being great at interviews. I'm an Everton supporter and remember his stint with us well, and he always came off as a very likeable and sympathetic person in front of the cameras and when interacting with the local community. Sacking him was kinda like sacking a friend; you know it had to be done cause he didn't do his job well enough, but sucks it had to happen to such a nice person. His first season being so good is often being attributed to him inheriting a solid defensive formation from Moyes and then adding some attacking flair to it, and the following regression from that original defense being phased out in favor of his own system. Came off as very inflexible. He always forced his particular system and never reacted or tried to change things in response to the opposition or the latest result.

As a Portuguese fan I was so disappointed with the federations choice. You said it best when you pointed out we are replacing a bland, boring and uninspiring coach with another. One of our biggest problems has been the feeling that we are throwing a golden generation away, and the next thing I know is we are getting an expert in throwing golden generations away.

Belgium at the WC was always the obvious "disappointment" to me. It's hard to say why, but it was basically a given to me Morocco would get an "upset" against them as counterintuitive as it sounds I actually think Morocco generally faced some very fortunate opponents. Obviously they were good teams, but them and Portugal in particular had no game plan and no "bite", just some of the best players in the world and vibes, which is why a team as spirited and defensively cohesive tore them to shreds. France and Argentina, even the Netherlands, Brazil, Croatia and England would rinse them 8/10 times

BROOOOOOOO I'm from Portugal and follow you a couple years already, and then I open a video and there u are with a shirt from my club (and hometown). U made my day! thanks man, keep the good work!

Undoubtedly a successful manager in his early years. To continue to keep Wigan afloat who were by far the smallest fish in there at the time, and transform Swansea from league one to promotion contenders in the championship are great achievements.

Good to see an American with a Vitória de Guimarães shirt, I'm impressed that an American has such ball knowledge. Keep up the good work

Love the vitoria shirt!! Im a vitoria fan, means a lot! much love from Portugal

He's worked on ESPN's World Cup coverage and I was always really impressed with him. My guess is that he comes in and nails the interview because he's well spoken and charismatic

As a German, I can confirm that Japan is nearly unbeatable.

Zea, your reaction was exactly the same as the one from all Portuguese football fans.

My favourite part of this video was when Romelu Lukaku said "Its Lukakuing time!" And then Lukakued all over the place

He's an icon for us at Swansea :D

I appreciate that you used a Portuguese team jersey. Nice 🤜🤛

Look i dont trust most people who are life coaches or motivational speakers but if Roberto Martinez wrote a book on how to succeed id but it in an instant. Man clearly knows interviews

Anyone that can fail up has my respect. Thats a rare skill.

It is impressive how he fails upwards 😂

If you only look back at his table positions, you can definitely come to this conclusion. But if you were a fan of PL at this time and watched a lot of clubs like Swansea and Wigan, you would understand his greatness. He was the first to establish Swansea as a very interesting possession team, he developed Leon Britton into a PL player (with the help of Rodgers, of course). The fact that he managed to win the FA cup with Wigan is almost a greater achievement than when Leicester won the PL, check how Wigan was managed at this time, it wasn't like they where going around and buying established players around Europe that people had a good eye on, Wigan were really poor by PL standards, even for that time. His time at Everton was not a failure either. He took over from Moyes who had run a somewhat primitive tactic (very successful) and then as at Swansea established a more playing football, certainly bigger wins did not happen but it was not a failure, at least not for the neutral spectator. His "failure" in Belgium is simply that expectations were set too high. Yes, a couple of really fine attacking players at a very high level, but it wasn't like Spain, England, Germany, Holland, Italy etc etc didn't have this too. A bigger failure could instead be said that Erik Hamren did with the Swedish national team, he managed to miss far too many championships and he had Zlatan. To say that he only fails upwards is very harsh. This man has worked his way up from Leauge One to get this chance, to think he doesn't know what he's doing shows more of the difference between coaching a football team in fm and coaching a team in real life. With all that said...love you Zealand, you are the best! I just like mr martinez :)

martinez' swansea side had a very recognizable style in england it had an interesting reach of influence, we even saw some shades of it in brendan rodgers' early liverpool stint i dont think national team management is as attractive as club management

I can sort of understand his career as a club manager. It's his career as a national team manager that puzzles me more, to this day I still wonder how he got the Belgium job, and what made the Belgium FA offer it to him in the first place.

I don’t think that’s necessarily correct coz international management is a bit of a sideshow compared to European club management. I do think it’s bizarre that Portugal hired him on his failures as Belgium manager, but national teams have a limited pool of managers to pick from coz most managers manage club teams. Either you have to get a young, up-and-coming manager or an older manager who wants an easier job before he retires. Martinez gets the international gigs coz he can’t land a job in the top leagues in Europe

He's one of those 'philosophy' coaches who gets jobs based more on his style of football as opposed to the results he achieves.

As a Belgian, my sincerest condolonces.

The clip of Lukaku on the Everton bench reacting in disbelief to the news that his former manager was now his national boss is an all time classic

As a portuguese and knowing Roberto Martinez's career I was stunned with his appointment. With so many great portuguese managers out there and Van Gaal saying he was keen to take the job (if I'm not mistaken I heard he lives in algarve) the choice made was really odd. Maybe we can win the euros again and then crash out of the world cup group stages

If I am not wrong, he was also considered for the Liverpool job at one point. But they got Brendan Rogers instead.

How's no one talking about Zealand's shirt? Respect for owning and wearing a shirt from a barely known team from a small country

I don't understand the whole point of criticizing him based off of the fact that an AGING SQUAD couldn't replicate the height of their golden generation. I hate the fact that us as football fans think a gaffer has a remote controller to control each move of players on the pitch when his job is to simply instruct tactics and set a game plan infused with motivation catered to the players to do well. It's clear that he did a good job with Belgium with the exception of the 2022 World Cup. Give the man a chance to actually prove himself, damn. It's definitely that Wigan Athletic stigma that sticks out hence the constant underestimation.

As a Belgian I was delighted finally seeing Martinez go, with plenty of Portuguese friends, I feel sorry for Portugal

I can't blame him. He's managing with attribute masking.

His time at Wigan was more returning to the mean, at worst, it wasn't like he shat the bed, and the FA cup win (against Man City, it should be noted) was astounding, so the move to Everton was 100% warranted, not a case of failing upwards. Belgium did well & had a poor tournament

Replacing the manager that let you go as a player is such a power move, highlight of his career 😁

It's important to say that during his tenure at Wigan and Everton, he received barely any backing from the board and always had to work with very limited finances (and ideas, although Martinez coped with that at both clubs). Both teams would've gone backwards even with a different manager anyway. His tactical ideas will suit the Portuguese players' abilities, and he is skilled enough to rebuild the relationship between the people and the national team. The appointment, while not ideal, still makes a bit of sense.

I think it’s down to the fact international management doesn’t have the same prestige as club football, like what country in the world has a world class manager who club teams want ? I think that’s why Martinez got the job because even though he’s not great he’s better than most international managers, you don’t see the likes of pep or Klopp or any top manager drop into international management until they’re close to retiring

I think that his possesion style similar to the Spanish national team is the key to his success. Everyone in that era wants a manager who plays like barça or similar.

I think the organisation and stability he brought to the struggling teams he managed was what made other teams interested in him as a manager, and there are lot's of hidden factors behind all those statistics, these teams were all struggling financially

So glad to see the Vitória SC shirt ! :D

As a belgian, i'm gratefull for what he did at the 2018 world cup [which we should have won tbf if it wasnt for france] but after the '2020' EUROS we shouldve moved on since the results were on the decline and his magic faded away

He was one of the favourites for the Liverpool job that ultimately went to Brendan Rodgers, at that time he was known for playing really exciting football

So much revisionism in this to suit your narrative... As Swansea manager he got them promoted with the highest ever points tally by a welsh club in the football league when they won the League 1 title, he then had 2 very good seasons in the championship and Martinez has always been rightfully credited for creating the platform at Swansea that eventually lead to Brendan Rodgers getting them promoted to the Premier League... At Wigan you can go back and see that the investment in that team got gradually less and less year upon year, the year they got relegated the 3 teams above them all spent approx. 3 x the amount they did. The spent a total of 10 million euros, that was peanuts even back then for the prem..... keeping that club up was about as good an achievement as anyone could hope for, let alone winning an FA Cup? Incredible achievement. The Everton spell ended badly despite a good start, but then find a manager that hasn't had a bad spell on their record? That in isolation doesn't merit the criticism alone, and seriously look at what Everton have done since he left, grand total of nothing..... And the reaction to his spell at Belgium has been seriously over the top, getting to the semi finals and being beaten by the eventual winners France is perfectly acceptable, and the squad is aging so badly with very few youngsters coming through at the same level as the previous players nobody should have expected them to achieve anything... Do I think he's the worlds greatest manager? not by a stretch but he's also not this joke figure that he's made out to be either...

“Oh New Zealand video!” *watches a video of him absolutely going in on my new national team coach* Every point is so spot on I HATED the signing when it was first unveiled

As a Belgian, i can confirm Roberto Martinez is the reason Belgium's golden generation never reached greatness. He never uses young players and relies on favourites because of which he fails by playing bad players over and over again. He's the reason we didn't win a euros or world cup and he will never be forgiven here. I hope he doesn't last long for Portugal because they look like a good young squad.

Your video sums up Martinez very well. This man is very savvy answering questions and knows exactly what to say to impress, or the decision makers who are interviewing him have very poor judgement skills.

To be fair to his career in England/Wales he was a bit ahead of his time tactically over here. In a league that still focused on direct 4-4-2 he played back 3s/5s and possession football. He introduced the style to Swansea that eventually saw them get promoted under Brendan Rodgers, gain a ton of credit, stay in the PL for multiple seasons and even win a League Cup. His international career movement has been completely bizarre though, I'll give you that. Must be a brilliant interviewee.

also weird to hear one of my local clubs (chester city) get a mention, sadly that version of the club sent under, got resurrected as a pheonix club a few years later - dont think martinez is to blame for that though

Watching Zealand videos is like having a nice hot chocolate with marshmallows. Always enjoyable.

You forgot my favorite moment: Belgium leading France 2-0 in the Nations League semifinal. At halftime the pundits on TV and even the official Belgian FA Twitter account were spamming how great they were and how they were gonna go all the way, only for the French to realize you just need to press their elderly defense and score 3 goals in the second half. 2-3. The team never recovered from that.

If he was called Robert Martin he'd be in the depths of non league

In a few hours, i'm heading to the stadium to watch Vitoria vs FC Porto. Amazing to see your shirt today! :D

can you do a video on what to do in your second summer in the job skyways kinda overwhelmed with contacts youth intakes how many from the intake to sign managing new budgets identifying positions needed etc

when a team expects mid-table finish but you promise cl in interview.

His first managerial job at swansea isn't weird at all. Zidane got hired by RM, Pirlo by Juve, Lampard by Chelsea, Dalglish by Liverpool - all without prior experience. Players who have served the club for a long time always have an easier way into managing them later, always happens in football. Obv doesn't take away from the rest of the video but pretty ridiculous to argue that he didn't deserve that job

I appreciate the real life videos relating to Soccer you make for us

Martinez you jack bastard! It's nice that he over saw the swans moving into the new stadium after playing in the team for final seasons at the Vetch

As an Everton fan his first season with us is the best football I have seen us play in my lifetime (I'm 29) Also record points tally in the premier league, although not our record position

In that press conference, the Portuguese FA president also said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit that Martinez would be a good manager that would allow us to strengthen our ties with Spain, which, in turn, would put us in a much better position to be the 2030(?) World Cup hosts. Truly, the Robert California of football.

I really couldn't believe last Euros he started Thomas Vermaelen and Christian Benteke in the same game. I could not believe my eyes at that lineup...

Please do more videos like this on real football, you did a great job.

hello, zealand, i watch for years, ive accomplised everything in fm, but cant win the CLUB WORLD CUP!! As we know, all the player are deade by game 3 because they dontrecover from fatigue, how do i win it?

Wigan fan here, you've massively oversimplified how Wigan recruited on a shoestring budget and were relegated due to a team-wrecking amount of injuries (in the FA Cup final we were playing midfielders in both LB and RB)

He's the perfect FM manager. Getting a high level job with no previous management experience.

Is the USA tier database coming to fm23?

Good lord, Z. It's the second time I see you with a PT club shirt and you straight to the two clubs that I really, REALLY want to see as far away from me as possible. Back when I was a student in Coimbra and Académica was in the premier league, Guimarães fans would just throw firecrackers at passersby university students for fun. And, considering all the stories I've heard, I guess we were lucky it wasn't much worse. Oh. And every single place I've visited in the north of Portugal was extremely friendly and helpful to me. Porto, Braga, Vila Real, Chaves, Viseu, you name it. Amazing people. EXCEPT GUIMARÃES. The moment (many) Guimarães residents detect a southern Portuguese accent, you'll immediately be treated like scum.

This guy nearly got the Poland job before the FA president crossed him out for "overstepping" in their negotiations. Honestly I had no idea why the entire Polish media was hyped about him and painting him as a top class manager, I had to explain to everyone (as someone who lived abroad my whole life) that he is despised in western europe and no one wants him.

I'm sorry Z, Wigan was my first mega save on FM. And they gave me and my friends free tickets for going to the uni at Chester. I will accept no slander (outside of this last world cup). The power of my extremely subjective bias calls you wrong.

I’m literally from Chester and I had ZERO idea he ever played here…that’s how uninspiring this man is..he must be the greatest presentation artist at job interviews there’s ever been!

Great video but you missed one important point..in RM first few years as Belgium managed he has the former World class Shaun Maloney as his assistant manager. When he left it fell apart

I'm swansea fan I love roberto martinez he was key player for us if wasn't him I most probably be was watching non league so I glad roberto joined the swans kept us up in the football league back in 2004 he was great manager for swansea I believe roberto is good manager 👍

As an everton fan, I love martinez, got us playing the best football we ever have, but he overall just doesnt regard defence as important. He is also one of the nicest fellas I have ever seen, genuine shame he didnt do more with us, we have slumped ever since

Great Vitória shirt!

Love your Vitória shirt!

The thing with the Wigan Premier League runs they were consistently last place with like 10games to go and would claw their way out with exceptional runs, the year the won the FA cup their league form didn't pick up

As a Belgian I believe we would have won the wc in 2018 if we had a top tier manager

Zealand using my clube kit, what a fucking legend

I think there's a big underestimation of how good the football Wigan played under him was. They were perennially underfunded, but played some wonderful passing football for a team at the bottom end of the Prem when the bottom end of the Prem was Owen Coyle's Bolton and Mark Hughes' QPR, not exactly slick units. They had a habit of turning up and wrecking big teams (3-2 away at Arsenal, 1-0 against City in the cup final spring to mind), and pulled off a few great escapes. He made Jordi Gomez, Arouna Kone, James McArthur and Emerson Boyce into respectable Prem-level players. I don't think any team has given him as long a leash as Wigan did, which is why we got some beautiful madness for a few years.

He's just that good at playing Journeyman in FM.

What jersey is he wearing, looks pretty cool

He must have a terrific agent, nobody gets such jobs with a track record like the one he has. For Portugal to choose the one coach in the world worse than Santos is quite an indictment of the Portuguese FA too.

the shirt from my city Ur the best man

He was at Swansea and took them to a new level. He was at Wigan, kept them in the Premier League with easily the lowest budget in the league and won an FA Cup. He was at Everton and did well for two years because nobody since Moyes has managed more than two good seasons at that dysfunctional hellhole. And Belgium are flaky. They didn't have the players nor the mentality to win a major championship. It also doesn't help that they weren't all been good at the same time. This last World Cup was a failure to dump the older generation and rebuild, not to achieve something with two centre backs who are too old to play at this level.

One golden generation was simply not enough to satisfy this man 😂😂

FA Cup win is a moment the streets will never forget. He was the King of The Great Escape while at Wigan.

He did a good job at Swansea! Brendan Rodgers seemed to get all the credit for the work Bob Martin did before he got there.

You’re wrong. Canada actually is pretty good currently. They came in first in Concacaf qualifiers (over Mexico and USA). Sure, Concacaf ain’t great, but Canada also has a world-class left back (Alphonso Davies) and a near-elite striker (Jonathan David). The rest of their team is immature to middling, but Canada’s coach, John Herdman, consistently out-coached everyone in Concacaf, winning the division with a slightly less-talented team. He’s surprisingly tactical and strategic for a somewhat unproven coach. Besides, Belgium did beat them. Morocco went to the semifinals, so not really sure what you’re criticizing, there. They’ve got a lot of talent, just overlooked by a lot of Westerners. They did draw Croatia, which scored third place in the World Cup (over Morocco, two other teams in their group were top-4). Also, there was incredible in-fighting in the locker room, which, if you look into it, has very little to do with Martinez. He’s an elite international coach, and I think most teams would trade the farm for him.

Southgate getting the England job is in a similar vein.

That jersey looks awsome bro😮

great video and perfect ending 😂

To be honest, international coaches are not always coming from big clubs. Like, Lionel Skaloni had no experience whatsoever (2 years as an assistant coach, OK) and Zlatko Dalić was coaching in the Middle East before Croatia team. Also, Gareth Southgate wasn't very successful before coaching England. One can argue, of course, that with this team anyone can be as good as he (in terms of results), but I am not in that camp. They deserved to win the EURO-2020 no less than Italy, in my humble opinion (and the greatest team there was undoubtedly Spain). Anyway, I see where Z is coming from here, but saying that 'Roberto Martinez is a destroyer of Belgium's golden generation' is very harsh. Honestly, that team he had wasn't better in terms of names than the teams he lost to in play-offs and in the last World Cup he was very unlucky in the last game (being lucky in the first, granted).

He was great af Swansea (i loved him) I know he got Wigan relegated in the end but an FA cup for them is massive Last Everton manager to finish above liverpool and the state Everton are in now I think they'd have him back I know Belgium were rubbish ay this world cup but at the last euros and 2018 world cup he only lost to the eventual winners Is he really that bad as people make out?

He’s a good knockout tournament manager that’s why. Won FA cup with Wigan, 3rd place with Belgium at World Cup beating brazil on the way. Then players got old and not even pep would win with 2022 Belgium.