Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Coach finally has time in spotlight
MOSCOW — Two wins from becoming the first foreign coach to win a World Cup, Roberto Martinez always will be known as Frankie to his former boss.
“He reminded me of those wonderful what I call zoot-suited American vocalists, like Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, Frankie Valli,” Everton chairman Bill Kenwright said. “And I christened him Frankie from the first day I met him.”
Martinez had more hair then. Now balding, the Spaniard has led Belgium to a World Cup semifinal against France today, three days before his 45th birthday. All 20 previous World Cup-winning coaches were born in the nation they led
to the title.
“He’s a genius tactically,” said American goalkeeper Tim Howard, who spent three seasons with Martinez at Everton. “He always finds a weakness in the opponent. He prepares his teams to break down the opponent. No game is the same — he changes tactics every game.”
Belgium beat five- time champion Brazil 2-1 in the quarterfinals when Martinez switched to a new formation — a 4-3-3 with star forward Romelu Lukaku on
the right wing. If Belgium gets past the French, The Red Devils would play England or Croatia on Sunday with the chance to win their first World Cup title.
Englishman George Raynor’s Sweden team advanced to the 1958 final at home but lost to Brazil, and Ernst Happel of Austria led the Netherlands team to the 1978 final, an extra-time defeat to host Argentina. Martinez hopes to succeed where they failed by employing a two-year process to ensure “this is a team, this is not a group of individuals.”
“There’s more feeling of trust in each other,” midfielder Kevin De Bryune said.
Martinez is familiar in the U.S. from his work for ESPN as an analyst at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the last two European Championships and the 2013 Confederations Cup. He insisted the network install a screen that showed the overheard tactical camera.
“Roberto only wanted to watch that,” said Amy Rosenfeld, ESPN’s senior coordinating producer for soccer. “We always had a setup where everybody else could see the main feed, and Roberto had a separate monitor where he could just watch the entire game from his high end zone. That’s how he could consume the match, interpret the match, look at shape, look at formation, look at vulnerabilities, passing lanes.”
He grew up in the Catalonia city of Balaguer and left the youth system of his hometown club at 16 to join Zaragoza. He played for a series of small clubs and became known for his move to third-tier Wigan for the 199596 season along with Jesus Seba and Isidro Diaz, a trio quickly dubbed the “Three Amigos.”
He quit as a player at 33 when Swansea offered the manager’s job in February 2007, and in his first full season earned the club a promotion that put it back in the second tier for the first time since 1983-84. Martinez moved up to the Premier League with Wigan in June 2009 and after a bizarre 201213 season, when Wigan was relegated while winning its first FA Cup, he switched to more prestigious and ambitious Everton, where he would coach Lukaku and Marouane Fellaini, a pair that has combined for five of Belgium’s 14 World Cup goals.
Martinez wasn’t thought of as a tactician at the club level. He was fired with one match left in his third season at Everton following fan protests as the Toffees headed to their second straight 11th-place finish. The Royal Belgian Football Association, which fired Marc Wilmots after a 3-1 loss to Wales in the 2016 Euro quarterfinals, hired him three months later.
Martinez brought in former French star Thierry Henry as an assistant, wanting his experience as a World Cup and European champion. Players were booed in Martinez’s first match, a 2-0 loss to Spain, but the Red Devils are unbeaten in 24 matches since (19 wins). A month before the World Cup, he was rewarded with a new two-year contract running through the 2020 European Championship.
Kenwright praises Martinez for being “an extraordinarily good man” admired by club employees from top to bottom.
“He truly is, truly, truly, truly, 24-7. I don’t say that thinking, well, he’ll take an hour off on Sunday. He won’t. He takes no time off at all,” Kenwright said. “The World Cup this summer has not been about superstars, but has been about teams and particularly their coaches and their managers. And that’s why people like [Martinez] and Gareth Southgate stand out.”