FRANKFURT: Concern is growing among Portugal fans about Roberto Martinez’s approach when his team faces Slovenia in the round of 16 of the 2024 European Championship on Monday.
Portugal travelled to Germany as one of the contenders for a second tournament win, but despite finishing first in Group F, the Portuguese team’s performances dampened expectations about how far the Seleção can go.
They scored a narrow 2-1 victory against the Czech Republic in the last second, impressed with a 3-0 win against Turkey and then suffered a surprise 0-2 defeat against debutants Georgia.
Martinez used a 3-5-2 formation against the Czechs and Georgia, which his players struggled to cope with, while their more familiar 4-3-3 worked well against Turkey.
Portugal qualified for the European Championship with a 100 percent success rate, but their form has been much more mixed since then, with Georgia handing them their first competitive defeat of Martinez’s tenure.
Slovenia were the first team to beat Martinez’s Portugal in a friendly in March, with their 3-5-2 system failing again that day.
But Portugal’s experienced defender Pepe said the team needed to try harder and follow Martinez’s instructions better.
“I think we lost when we should have lost and now we have to learn from it,” said the central defender ahead of the duel with Slovenia in Frankfurt.
“(We have to learn) from what we didn’t do as players, whether we followed the coach’s instructions in general and of course try not to make mistakes in the next game.”
However, some Portuguese media believe that the players are confused by Martinez’s plans and therefore have difficulty implementing them.
“We wonder if Roberto Martinez has understood what went wrong against Georgia and also against the Czech Republic,” says a column in the newspaper A Bola.
“It’s hard to see in the faces (of many players) a team that knows what it’s doing and, perhaps more importantly, believes in it.”
There are also concerns that Martinez is too deferential to 39-year-old striker Cristiano Ronaldo, who failed to score in any of the three group matches.
Although Ronaldo rotated virtually his entire team in the loss to Georgia, he was still in the starting line-up and Martinez’s reasoning did not stand up to closer scrutiny.
“I think that in order to maintain the rhythm of the competition, it is not good to stop and then (have to) start again in six days,” explained the coach before Portugal’s capitulation.
Martinez left Belgium after the 2022 World Cup, where his team was eliminated in the group stage, scoring only one goal.
In that tournament, his selection of Eden Hazard was questioned due to his fitness and form problems at Real Madrid. The winger later said he felt younger players deserved his place. Portugal fans will hope the result against Georgia will be a wake-up call for Martinez, but the manager claimed his team are now well placed for the knockout stages after giving around a minute to the reserves.
“The focus was on preparing all the players and now we are better prepared for the round of 16,” said Martinez.
“We had players on the bench who had to play. We don’t like losing – it’s the first competitive game we’ve lost – but the goal has been achieved because we are now better prepared.”
Portugal will face a difficult opponent in Slovenia, having reached the knockout rounds for the first time in its history thanks to a draw against England.
With Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak in goal against his former Real Madrid nemesis Ronaldo and striker Benjamin Sesko on the prowl on the other side, Matjaz Kek’s side could prove a difficult opponent for a Portuguese team that is struggling to get going.