Roberto Martínez

Roberto Martínez took the Portugal job in January 2023, becoming the first foreign senior manager of the Seleção since Otto Glória in the 1960s and ending Fernando Santos’s seven-year reign. The Spaniard arrived with a complicated reputation: Belgium’s manager from 2016 to 2022, he had taken the Red Devils to third place at the 2018 World Cup and the world No. 1 ranking, but had been hounded out after Qatar 2022 when the so-called golden generation crashed out in the group stage amid reports of dressing-room fractures. The Portuguese federation viewed his hiring as a Cruyff-school corrective to Santos’s pragmatism — and, three and a half years later, the bet has paid off with a Nations League trophy and a Group K seeding that places Portugal among the tournament’s eight protected favorites.

Martínez’s footballing identity is rooted in the Catalan possession tradition. As a player he was a holding midfielder for Wigan and Swansea; as a manager he won Swansea promotion to the Championship in 2007-08 playing the tiki-taka-adjacent football that would define his career. Wigan Athletic survived four Premier League seasons under him and produced the most famous trophy of his career — the 2013 FA Cup, won 1-0 against Manchester City — before being relegated the same week. Everton hired him days later, but his three seasons in Liverpool ended in dismissal after a fifth-place finish in 2014 gave way to consecutive 11th-place collapses. Belgium took him on as their head coach in August 2016, and the next six years produced both his career’s biggest triumph (Russia 2018, third place) and its most disappointing failure (Qatar 2022, group stage exit).

With Portugal, Martínez has been careful not to repeat the Belgium mistake of letting senior players dictate selection. Cristiano Ronaldo remains the captain and the focal point — Martínez has openly said he sees Ronaldo as a “natural goal scorer who happens to be 41” — but the team’s center of gravity is the midfield trio of Vitinha, João Neves and Bruno Fernandes. The shock omission of João Palhinha from the May 2026 squad, the willingness to bench Ronaldo for Gonçalo Ramos in Nations League knockouts, and the dedication of an honorary 27th-man spot to the late Diogo Jota all illustrate a head coach who is comfortable making unpopular decisions for what he believes is the collective good.

The Nations League final against Spain on 8 June 2025 was a microcosm. Trailing 2-1, Martínez brought on Conceição and Pedro Neto to widen the press, equalized through a Ronaldo deflection, and won on penalties — Bernardo Silva burying the decisive kick. It was the trophy that justified his appointment and bought him universal Portuguese trust heading into 2026. If he can navigate Group K cleanly and engineer at least a quarterfinal, Martínez will go down as one of the most successful coaches in Portuguese history regardless of his nationality.