Roberto Martínez: 'Football is a chance to fight for your dreams in life'

11-Jul-2020 07:00:05 | The Guardian

Belgium’s manager on feeling ready to go all the way at Euro 2020, moving on from the golden generation and why he loves English football

Until he took the Belgium job, Roberto Martínez felt much the same as any club manager: that there was rarely a timely international break. “But then, when you experience that side of football, you realise it takes the game into a different level,” he says. “Having a whole nation kicking a ball and celebrating a goal, or going through the misery of not being able to win a major tournament. Nothing unifies, or takes celebration to a global scale, like international football.”

Put like that, perhaps Euro 2020 will provide a salve for troubled times when it belatedly begins next June. Had Covid-19 not intervened so tragically, it is perfectly conceivable that Martínez would have been leading Belgium out at Wembley in the final on Sunday and their “golden generation”, a decade in the making, would have achieved its crowning moment.