2018 World Cup: Roberto Martinez's Belgian bet pays off as big names start shooting in the same direction

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The critics of De Bruyne have been widely regarded as a broadsi. against coach Roberto Martinez, but in reality he had highlighted with his usual surgical precision a defect that had tormented Belgium since it became apparent that they were cultivating a generation of abundant individual talents and unprecedented. Bringing them all to the field was easy enough. Getting them to go in the same direction, as a functional unit, was an entirely different thing.

A night of rest in Kazan, Belgium finally discovers its Arcadia. By beating Brazil 2-1 to reach their first World Cup semifinal in 32 years, they produced what has eluded them for so long: a real team performance, in which the different parts of the machine worked in harmony and not in isolation. The flanks were connected to the center. The defense was in phase with the midfielder. There was actually a midfielder, which made a nice change. Once the ball reached the top three of De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard, everything was possible. And with France waiting in the semi-final Tuesday in St. Petersburg, everything is still possible.

So, what happened in the next eight months? In the aftermath of the match, much praise was spread towards Martinez, including the 3-4-3 system – which morphed into a 4-3-3 when he was no longer in possession – has largely contributed to shake the most creative players in Brazil. . The coach himself was keen to deflect credit: "I've never lost a game on the tactical board, it's the execution that matters," he said. . What is undeniable, however, is that for the first time in years, players buy the Martinez Way.

"We were so organized collectively," said right-back Thomas Meunier, who did a great job in chaining the triple threat of Neymar, Philippe Coutinho and Marcelo on the Brazilian left. "I always had the help of Marouane Fellaini, from Toby Alderweireld, we were really focused on Neymar, Coutinho, Marcelo, and we did a really good job." Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was just as brazen. "Our tactical plan," he said, "was perfect."

Of course, this is not the kind of thing you can create overnight. In fact, it took most of Martinez's two years to create a culture in which players are challenged, coached rather than managed, given the tools to solve the problems on the ground, to understand how far Belgium has come. , we must go back to the agonies of the previous regime, at Euro 2016 under the direction of Marc Wilmots, well-intentioned but tactically without pants.

The anecdote that best sums up the Wilmots diet is perhaps that four days before their quarter-final against Wales, the video badyst Herman Landtsheer's team has compiled a report on the Welsh threat. England under Gareth Southgate at this World Cup – four players gathered in a tight knot on the edge of the area before dispersing in all directions. But remarkably, not once has Wilmots defended against tactics at training. Shortly before halftime, Ashley Williams equalized by such a routine, and in the hour a 1-0 lead was disintegrated into a humiliating 3-1 defeat.

As the Belgian tournament escaped, Wilmots showed himself totally incapable of tides. His big idea was to replace Yannick Carrasco with Marouane Fellaini, and urge his players to show "more aggression, that 's all". The fact that the defense of Miller, Alderweireld and Jason Denayer was informed of the lineup only three hours before the kickoff, and would not have played together a single workout, was perhaps more important.

And when Wilmots was sacked and Martinez arrived, his job was not just to get a team into the park, but to undo a whole cycle of neglect. While Wilmots often seemed reluctant or unable to stir or confront the names of the stars of the team, what Martinez eventually came to realize was that it was a group that really wanted to be challenged . These are, after all, smart players accustomed to working with some of the most demanding and demanding coaches in the world: Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Diego Simeone, Maurizio Sarri, Antonio Conte, Mauricio Pochettino, Unai Emery. Martinez's strategy was therefore to charge them with details and to trust them to find the right solutions, to find the right balance between attack and defense.

Martinez takes opposition research very seriously and organizes training sessions around it. The game plan for Brazil, specifically calibrated to reduce the threat of Marcelo and move the ball into the circuits where Brazil was light, was drilled for two full days – another point of divergence with Wilmots, who preferred his Workouts are open and rarely adjusted for a particular opponent.

"Every coach has his approach," said Alderweireld. "Now we badyze the opponents' games to determine how to exploit their weaknesses, we work on tactics, and these closed sessions give us more peace, we had a good plan, we knew what to do – It's one thing, the second thing is to really do it, then everything revolves around the heart, and well defend. "

The tactical orientation of Martinez also allowed Belgium to develop different strategies based on the match situation. De Bruyne was deployed in a deeper midfielder role during most of the tournament, but while Belgium was trying to catch up 2-0 against Japan, it was pushed further into the game. hope to stimulate their transitions. It was a role that he dramatically redoubled against Brazil, scoring a memorable goal in the break just 17 seconds after defending a corner in his own penalty area. "It's our strength that we have different plans," said Alderweireld. "It was the first game we sat in a bit and tried to play at the counter."

And as Belgium has rolled into its first World Cup semi-final since 1986, a united country has begun to merge behind a tight-knit team. Although Martinez's appointment first raised eyebrows – "the choice of a stranger surprised me," observed Wilmots, who seemed not to notice the irony in his last Côte d'Ivoire coaching post – a subtle decision, perfectly reconcile the Francophone and Dutch-speaking divide that has often torn apart the country's political and cultural life, as well as its football.

Martinez's accomplishment consisted in bringing together a team of different identities – Flemish and Walloon, indigenous and immigrant, young and experienced – while persuading his superstars to submit to a common cause. Miller tweeted: "The collective will always take precedence over the individual." The former Tottenham and Barcelona striker, Steve Archibald, remarked that the word of the order of the day will be the following. team was #redtogether. the team spirit is an illusion glimpsed as a result of the victory. But when you have to prepare for a semi-final World Cup, the question of whether success has led to cohesion, or vice versa, is not exactly that side that will lose sleep.

Meunier, who will be suspended for the semi-final after winning his second tournament booking, believes that France will be an even tougher test than Brazil. "They have a very good balance, defensively, offensively," he said. "I think France is a little more complete than Brazil," said Jan Vertonghen. "It will be harder to break them down."

But after decades of underperformance, followed by the biggest victory in its history, Belgium can finally believe it. While all the winners of the World Cup are eliminated – Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Uruguay and Italy do not even qualify – the feeling is that the It's time for a new name on the trophy, for a new power of football to badert. "What this country has achieved in football is unique," said captain Vincent Kompany in the aftermath of the victory. "But we have to keep going … It's not the end."

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