Roberto Martinez - The Football Interview

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If there was a big red button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:40The Football Interview on the Football Daily Podcast. I'm Kelly Summers and this season I'll be interviewing some of the biggest names in football, asking them the questions they don't normally get asked as I try to find out more about the person behind the player or manager. The first half will be on football, the second on their life away from the pitch. This isn't just any interview, this is the Football Interview. And this week, my guest is Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez. Roberto, thank you so much for your time today. Pleasure, Kelly. Let's start with football. Why football? For me, it's a way of living.

1:15I was born in a family that was breathing football. My dad was mad about football. My dad was a coach at that time, a local team. I would be the mascot and I would be... I've got pictures probably at the age of two or three. I would be listening to the team talks and I would be in that environment of the dressing room. So that for me was a safe zone. I thought that all the kids did that. I thought that was the normal thing to do and then I realised that it was the opposite. Not many kids had the opportunity to be in a team talk of the local team. Was that local team then your first proper team that you played for?

1:49Yes, on the 9th. I remember obviously you play in school. In Spain we got this futsal. As a young student you play with your futsal team in the school on Friday and then on Saturday you play with a football team. Was there a point where you thought, OK, I could make this, when you were looking around maybe at the other kids and thought, I'm at a good level here? At 16, if you want to play football, you have to go into a more professional standard. I got the opportunity to go to Zaragoza, I moved to the big city, Zaragoza, you study there and then you see the parents coming. To watch the game at the weekend was almost a ritual.

2:27When you look back on your career, Which club do you feel was where you had your most success when you look back on? Or you enjoyed the most? I enjoyed them all. They were all different. They were all challenging. I think I was in 1995 when the Boseman ruling came out. We were the first three Spaniards to come to the UK. The three amigos, weren't you? The three amigos, yes. And I think that's probably in my career. I think as a human being, we're always fearful. We don't like change. I was always the opposite. it, my answer would be, why not? Would you like to go to the UK without speaking a word of English and play football?

3:04So you couldn't speak any English when you came over? No, no, no. We arrived the first day at Wigan and I remember the press officer saying, would you mind to do a little bit, a couple of words with the local media? He said, I would love to, but I don't speak a word of English. And those are the challenges that But they really make you as a person. Let's talk just quickly about that FA Cup final, because that's still one of the greatest shocks, one of the greatest FA Cup finals in history. How do you reflect upon that all these years later? With a lot of pride. The dreams can really happen in the FA Cup.

3:40And I think that game and a final, you're playing the Champions of England, Man City with all the stars. The odds are against the underdog. I think everybody likes it. And underdog, I always found out that we had so many neutral fans that day. that you want to follow there. That's what happens in the FA Cup. But to actually perform and deserve to win was very special. At what point did you think management is for me? Was it always management? Always. Always, yeah. Even when you were a really young player? Yeah, because my dad was managing. I thought that was the best. Did you almost envisage being a manager before a player?

4:13Yes, yes. Yes, because I never saw my dad play. And it was fascinating because by coming to the UK in 1995, straight away they tell you there is no I in team you have to adjust to the group and you have to do whatever it takes to to be with a group the reality doesn't work like that it's the opposite you have to address the I before you can create a team and sometimes you were in the corner of a room thinking completely different culture different background and you expected to perform without having a help to be settled to feel to feel that you are valuable and there are many aspects that I learned from my own experience of being away from home and without me knowing it that was preparing me for that for that side that you need to get of how to get a team to be together to have the same goal and to be able to perform on the pitch.

5:06Other than your dad who's had the biggest influence on Roberto Martínez the manager? I was intrigued by Johan Cruyff the way he managed Barcelona. He came in he changed completely the the way that the game was played and I think many many people in the last in the last 100 years the influence again but I don't think nobody has influenced again the way the way that Johan Cruyff did it because it changed it was more a technical game it was a possession-based game it was about a numerical advantage and then you created the ones that they didn't follow that way of football they had to find a way to counter play that that style and then I follow many many other managers I think what John Toshek did when he went to Real Sociedad and then went to Real Madrid I love Pacha Maturana what I did with the Colombian team Arroyo Osaki such a structured and rigorous and methodic I always enjoyed how managers get their message across to the players and in a different in a different way all of them.

6:14Have you ever had an opportunity to go and watch any of those managers? We've spoken to Andoni Arreola, Brendan Rodgers this year and they talked about managers that they went and kind of learnt from. Have you had anyone like that? Any mentors or anything? I was just watching games. I think I liked to watch a game and I tried to double guess how did that happen? How did you take the risk to get to the player to understand what you're trying to work. I never went to see anybody work but I followed many World Cups. I started managing in the Premier League in 2009 every summer with my wife. I would invite her over to go to South Africa first and then Poland and then Brazil and then France.

7:02Our holidays were following the big tournaments. So she thought she was going on a lovely, exotic holiday but she was actually going to a tournament. I think the first time, yeah. Then she cottoned on. And then she knew because I was still over. From this day, I still owe her a nice honeymoon because the honeymoon when we got married was South Africa and she was delighted. She didn't realise that it was the World Cup. You've obviously seen management from both sides as well in terms of club management and international management. How do the two differ? Coaching in the Premier League is about tomorrow and it was about preparing the game that is in front of you, preparing the players that they can make a difference in winning the game.

7:39International football is about trying to find out the best talent and then to make it in a structured way to make it competitive and you've got three days to do that. That's very different to do it in a club level. Everything is more tactically synchronized, everything can be more methodic. International football is about creating good mood creating a sense of pride creating high performance teams that they follow in their dreams because when you represent your your national team affects your family the neighbors if you win the whole country wins when you lose the whole country loses it is a completely different way of enjoying the game i was fascinated about being involved in a world cup that was one of my dreams as a kid.

8:32I think we all follow the first World Cup. I remember 78, Argentina, Mario Kempes scoring in the final, then 82 was in Spain, so it was a big impact. So for me, the move to international football was just to experience a World Cup. Then I enjoyed it so much that I stayed almost 10 seasons now. Let's discuss your time with Belgium, because what an incredible group of players you had there, the golden generation, they said. What challenges did that job bring with it and what did you get from that period? Well, first and foremost was to cope with that tag of golden generation. Because it wasn't a pressure that the players were not used to it because obviously you're talking about the players that they are in the most demanding dressing rooms.

9:16Talking from Eden Hazard to Kevin De Bruyne, Dries Mertens, Romero Lukaku, Axel Witzel, Bertong, and Bermale and company, Thibaut Courtois, Yannick Carrasco. You're talking about the generation. But I think we managed to focus on, OK, let's be as good as we can together and let's become the golden generation. I think that was a beautiful journey to go to the World Cup in 2018. I thought we were obviously after seven games, we won six. We only lost the semifinal against France, 1-0. There were little margins that it happens, but then we became third. by winning the bronze medal in the last game, that is the moment that he became the golden generation.

9:58At that moment, it was a shift into what we could do from that point on. And that team stayed four years, consecutively as number one ranking. And that was a very interesting time to try to get a focus of everybody having that common goal, that he was trying to make history for Belgian football. And it was really, really enjoyable. Now I always ask in these interviews for my interviewee to tell me a game from their career, playing or managerial, that they wish they could relive. I think if I could relive a game would be the semi-final with Belgium against France, because we lost 1-0. I felt we were the better team, we had almost 60 % possession and it was just decided by one action, 1-0 and if it is one game that I could relive to try to change it, it would be that one.

10:49Do you think about it a lot or are you able to just park it now? No, sometimes I like to think about it. If we were going to play it again with the same situation, what could it be done different? And that helps, that helps. I think the margins are so small. You've got the best players possible of two generations and I think you can learn from having already the experience of being in a game like that. And you've not got a bad crop of players now at Portugal, have you? You've already won the Nations League and what an opportunity potentially ahead for you. The pressure is going to be there again.

11:20But it's an enjoyable pressure because it is true we arrived in obviously in Portugal, huge tradition, always created big players through the history now that we celebrated the moment that Eusebio won the Ballon d 'Or in 1965. You got players like Luis Figo, Joao Pinto or Rui Costa, it's a tradition in Portugal but they won everything apart from the World We got an incredible commitment from the players because this is probably a mixture of four generations. You go from the captain that is 40 years old to the youngest player that he arrived, that he was born the year that the captain made the debut for the national team.

11:59So we're looking forward. The first step is qualify. We did that and I always believe that there has never been a winning team that arrives to the tournament. The winning team becomes the winning team in the tournament. That captain, of course, is Cristiano Ronaldo. What's it like managing him? Very easy because his high standards, his expectations of how the work should be done and his commitment to the game. It truly is an example of what you should do to represent Portugal and the national team. And now he's adapted, obviously, after 21 years. Kerry and the national team is adjusted, he's a goal scorer, he's an important player for us.

12:41and it's the player that is now that is important for me as a national team coach. A player that has scored 25 goals in the last 30 international games is not that he's playing because of what he's done in the past, it's what he's done now. The question everyone's asking at the moment is how long can he go on for? As someone that's seen him close up, how long do you think he can keep playing for? Well, we've got all the stats. If you were going to analyse a player that is dropping at physical level, that's not the case. his physical stats of a player that he could go on and on and on. I think it's more a question of when he'll feel that it's the right time.

13:15I think he's a player that is very autocritical with himself when he doesn't see that he can help the team, he'll be the one that he'll decide when to stop. You've got two girls and you're married to a Scottish lady, is that correct? Is that from your time in Scotland? In Motherwell, yeah, that was the best thing. So that must be quite the culture kind of mix at home. Especially when you are the national team coach of Portugal playing against Scotland. I think it's been four times now that we've played with Belgium against Scotland. Obviously with my wife it's not a problem. It's more the in-laws.

13:47It's difficult for them to support a team that is different than Scotland. But no, that's part of the fun. I'm very lucky. And probably that's the biggest achievement that I want to have in my life, is to be the best father that I can be and the best husband that I can be. everything else is is it's gonna be just part of the journey tell me something about yourself that might surprise me I've never I've never tasted alcohol not one drop never yeah and he was a promise there when when I was 16 and I had the opportunity to go to to Zaragoza I went to my dad I said I really want to go and he said what do you think he said well it's the worst thing you could do because you're gonna be very young, 16, you're gonna be away from home and the first thing you're gonna do is start drinking, start smoking, you're gonna give up your studies and I said well I promise you I'll do my degree, I'll never drink, I'll never smoke and then since that day that was my commitment so I'm 52 now and and I'm proud to say that I never touch a drop of alcohol.

14:51If you were to win the World Cup next summer would you make it? Probably yeah I think I would be quite happy to do another commitment, yes.

15:24The Six Nations.

15:32sounds. If there was a big red button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.