Poor Roberto Martinez. Wigan Athletic’s finest is in line for another of European football’s top international jobs, and there’s not an iota of excitement online from anyone: it’s all just comments about how he wasted Belgium’s great-ever generation of talent. Of how he must possess sensitive information of big-wigs at some of world football’s biggest federations. Of how if his name was Bob Martin, he’d be coaching in League One.
After this summer, few can defend his Portugal tenure and his decision to play a 40-something up front. And yes, perhaps it is surprising that Martinez – whose finest achievement in football happened within days of suffering relegation – keeps getting the biggest jobs on the continent. Though to give them their credit here, this is a forward-thinking move by Dutch football association standards, an organisation who lost their contact book about 15 years ago, but were lucky enough to still have the phone numbers of Ronald Koeman and Louis van Gaal scratched on a desk somewhere in the office, in case of emergencies, and have flitted between the two like a moth stuck between two streetlights in a cul-de-sac.
