Original title: Former Belgium coach Martinez appointed as Portugal coach (quote)
New coach: whether to recruit Ronaldo to see performance (topic)
Beijing YouthZhang Kunlong
On the evening of the 9th, the Portuguese Football Association officially announced that the former Belgian national team coach Roberto Martinez will be the Portuguese national team coach. The Spanish coach also attended the inauguration conference as soon as possible. He said that whether Ronaldo can continue to be selected for the national team depends on his performance.
Born in 1973, Martinez served as a midfielder in the player era. He has played for Wigan Athletic and Swansea and other British teams, but there are not many bright moments in his career. After starting his coaching career at Swansea, he continued to improve step by step, and finally became the coach of the Belgian national team in 2016.
In the past 6 years, he has led the European Red Devils to a total of 56 wins, 13 draws and 11 losses. He won the third place in the 2018 World Cup and reached the quarter-finals of last year’s European Cup. However, in the just-concluded World Cup in Qatar, Belgium His performance was sluggish, and he was eliminated at the end of the group stage, and he himself left after the team ended the World Cup journey.
At the same time, after the Portuguese team lost to Morocco in the 2022 World Cup, they also sent away their meritorious coach Santos. Although there are many people interested in this position, the Portuguese Football Association finally chose Martinez who had just left Belgium. According to the schedule, this year the Portuguese national team will compete for four qualifying matches for the 2024 European Cup, which will face Liechtenstein (March 23), Luxembourg (March 26), Bosnia (June 17) and Iceland (6 20th).
At the inauguration press conference, the first question he was asked was: whether he would continue to recruit Ronaldo, who had already played in the Saudi League, to which Martinez gave his own answer: “My decision is to see The performance on the field, the 26 players participating in the Qatar World Cup are the basis of my choice, and Ronaldo is one of them.”