Martinez on Inspiration, Education and Turning Around Wigan's Fortunes

Roberto Martinez is considered one of the most talented young managers in football, having guided Swansea to the 2007/08 League 1 title in his first job in charge. Following two seasons with the Swans, he made a return to Wigan Athletic where he already enjoyed hero status due to his six years there as a player between 1995 and 2001.

Martinez led the team to Premier League safety in his first season and was credited as the man that kept the Latics in the division last season after lifting them off the bottom of the table to guarantee safety on the last day of the season in dramatic fashion.

Wigan have begun this season frustratingly and currently find themselves at the foot of the table with just five points from 11 fixtures, but the faith shown by fans and his loyal chairman Dave Whelan is proof of the way he is regarded at the DW Stadium.

Here Martinez discusses his football philosophy, his inspirations, his views on English football, and why he turned down the chance to manage Aston Villa in the summer.

You are very committed to playing in a stylish manner, does attacking football necessarily mean defence vulnerability, or can a balance be found?

No, not at all. The key of wanting to play attacking football is to have a good offensive balance and being able not to get exposed. It is important you know how to defend. Yes you have less bodies behind the ball but it is important you can be solid with your attacking concepts. That is the real key to a good attacking team. You look at the examples; Barcelona, they are probably the best team when they lose the ball and the way they look to regain possession. That is important in any team, whatever style you want to play; you should be able to have a good balance, either going forward or defensively. Attacking football relies on having a good foundation.

Have you ever been tempted to sway from your approach to the game?

No and that is a big debate. People get confused in terms of styles and results. That doesn’t mean when you don’t get a positive result, you should change your style. Knowing and controlling the way you win a football game is going to give you future success. You can lay strong foundations at your football club and slowly get better. To achieve long-term success is very very difficult, you need to have a clear style of football and be very good at it, there is no point in changing the style to get a result.

Your father was a manger with Korea and Spain’s lower leagues, I believe you shadowed him in training sessions as a young man. Have you taken on any aspects of his coaching methodology or his approach to tactics?

Yes, obviously it would be very rich of me to say I have taken his coaching methods as that was a long time ago and the methods change a lot.  The truth is, he had amazing attention to detail and he was a perfectionist and that is something I always wanted and admired and it is very important in any method of coaching. The attention to detail and the discipline is important. He has those qualities more than anyone and I am always very thankful to him for showing me the way and how to work.

What other managers and teams have you drawn inspiration from when forming your own philosophy on how the game should be played?

There are many, I love watching football and different cultures represent a different way to play football and that is reflected on the football pitch. Because at the time I was growing up as a footballer, Johan Cruyff’s impact on Spanish and European football was huge, in the way he trained Barcelona in the way to win football games. The manner of the way he controlled the tempo of the game, he introduced the idea of possession football to Barcelona. It was a little bit of the start of what Barcelona are today. In the way he changed the philosophy of the football club on top of the way you want to play. I would say that is one of the biggest influences that I admired from a distance, but I could go on with many managers I admire and the way they work, from Pacho Maturana when he was at Columbia, Arigo Sacchi and John Toshack at Real Sociedad. There are certain managers at certain football clubs that did things in a very different way, a very effective way and they brought impressive results.

You managed Swansea to a league title but the challenge at Wigan is different, does your approach to man management change for these different scenarios?

Not necessarily, no. I like to manage players by aspiration. I never believe in managing players through fear or trying, in a way, to be on top of a player to try to perform or try to be as be professional as he can be. I have been very fortunate to work with players who aspire to be the best that they can be and with that they carry the football club on their shoulders. That’s my ideal scenario; to be with every single player, with the same aspiration for the whole group, which is win football games for Wigan Athletic. That’s something to try to achieve.

Your parents helped you receive a good education and to earn a degree in physiotherapy and a post graduate degree in business management. Do you think young players in England will benefit from a longer education rather than leaving their studies early to try to pursue a career in the game?

Yes, I have said that, I have defended that many times. We are quite unique in the manner we develop our youngsters. In many ways we are very good, but I just think in the education side we sometimes take for granted that for a footballer, or a young man wanting to be a footballer, it is not in his hands. I think any other job you can achieve your qualifications and then it is a matter of enjoying your profession. In football, there is a big area of uncertainty; you rely on the luck of injuries, the luck of having the right run of form at the right time, making a decision on your professional contract. There are so many aspects that influence you on becoming a professional footballer. In a way we should allow youngsters to carry on educating themselves in the same way any youngster at that age does. Everyone should try to get a degree at the same time as a career in football. I don’t think it is the youngsters to blame, I think it is the families, I think we need to educate the parents sometimes, they say: ‘Well my son wants to be a footballer and that’s it’, it is very unfair on the player - if he does not make it as a player then he is disadvantaged with boys his same age. We allow them to focus on football too much, you need to study a lot to develop the brain and the structural concepts you can take in as a footballer will really help you. I do think every young man that is trying to become a porfessional footballer in the British game should carry on with a normal education system.

Given the success the Spanish national team has had over the last few years and the brilliance of Barcelona at club level, it is quite clear that the Spanish culture is dominant in world football at the moment, what do you put that down to?

Good planning and developing the right players. Spain has always had a great knack of producing great technical players but we have never been able to play in a way that makes us different, or makes us compete against the top teams in world football. In the last 10 years, the Spanish FA have put in a lot of good planning to develop players and that’s throughout all the top clubs in Spain and now we are seeing these players that we all know about - Xavi, Iniesta -but then you are looking underneath that line and you have got Cesc Fabregas, Thiago and the list really goes on - Mata, Silva. It is just because of the developing programme of the youngsters is very successful; it combines good coaching ability with competitive programmes for these youngsters to play their football and develop and make them as good as we can. For many reasons Spain has reached their full potential. You watch the Spain team play and they take many things from Real Madrid and Barcelona, but the truth is they have their own identity and are the best team in world football and will take a long-time to take them away from that level because of the amount of players they produce - they don’t rely on individuals to give them success.

So despite Saturdays result, what particularly can English football learn from Spanish football?

In English football you need to be adaptable, to play in different ways. I think England did that, they stopped Spain from being successful and they knew how to win a football game. Now the next step is to carry on producing good youngsters and good players that allows you to play in different ways depending on the opposition. In many ways you can see that Fabio Capello is trying to develop that mentality that is not just a one trick pony to win international football games. The awareness from a tactical point of view and the technical ability of the players is as good as anyone; now we need to promote that development of young players that will allow England to be a top nation in world football because the potential is there.

Turning to Wigan, it has been a tricky start to the season but has the form of Ali Al Habsi been a real plus for you?

There have been many plusses for us, we could go on a long while talking about the results we have had. We are in the middle of a really negative run and we have to change that. Sometimes you get into the wrong dynamic and it really affects you but there has been many good things - especially individual and although Ali is one of them I think others have performed well. It is a matter of getting that positive result that will give us a little bit of momentum and a good run of form. I feel it is now a key moment in our season to do that. It’s true that a couple of players have taken responsibility for the big roles which had to be filled when Tom Cleverley and Charles N’Zogbia left and there has been a two or three individuals that have taken their football to a whole new level. Now it is a matter of being collectively a good team and a team that can get a quick win that will allow us to fulfil our potential that I feel is there so we can achieve our aim this season.

How does the support that Dave Whelan offers differ to other chairman’s and owners of different clubs?

I have always said that I am very honoured and privileged to be the manger of Wigan but then to be able to work with a chairman that has got football knowledge first-hand. He has been a player and has played in every single division and a chairman in every single division. He has a real football understanding that inspires you with his successful touch. Its more than that, it is someone who allows you to work towards the long-term ambition of the football club and in that respect his support and loyalty is a key element in our success at Wigan and I always appreciate that. In the summer it was a chance to pay him back.

That was obviously when you turned down the opportunity to talk to Aston Villa, was that because of your strong relationship with Dave and the feeling you have with the club?

When I arrived we talked about the three-year project and we felt that after two years we have had another successful season there are many things behind the scenes that can be done. I never felt it was the right time for Wigan Athletic to change their manager. But more than anything I thought the chairman was so supportive of myself and so loyal. It was my time to be able to show him that I was going to break that agreement we had of a 3-three year relationship and it was a very simple decision from that point of view; it was best for Wigan Athletic at that time and a unique opportunity to show my chairman their loyalty and support that he has been giving me in the last few years.

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