Diego Martinez; The man that should be given the keys to Vicarage Road
Diego Martinez, or Diego Martinez Penas to use his full name. His background in football in his early career is the classic “I could have went pro but I broke my leg” but this time it’s actually true. Martinez at the age of 20 retired from professional football due to injury after spending many years at Celta Vigo and one season at Cadiz. Knowing his career was 50/50 — Martinez started coaching Imperio Albolote’s youth teams, then got an opportunity to coach the youth teams of Arenas Armilla, moving up in the ranks to assistant manager in 2005, and then the manager for one season from 2006-2007. Martinez then 25/26 did a decent job, winning 20 in 38 games, whilst only conceding 26 in the process. That was the main thing early on in his career, being defensively brilliant, but don’t confuse that with being boring as I’ll discuss his playstyle later. Following a good opening first team job at Armilla, Motril of Spanish fourth division came calling, where he stayed for two years — but it wasn’t until October of 2009 that the Spaniard was noticed by Director of football genius Monchi for his coaching ability at a young age. Martinez joined the backroom staff at Sevilla, and was then handed the task of managing their youth teams for a season, before being named assistant manager of Sevilla replacing the departing Javi Navarro, and being the right hand man to mentor and close friend Unai Emery. In their first full season together, Emery and Martinez won the Europa League, so much so the following season Martinez was given the opportunity to manage Sevilla B with one day eventually taking over from Emery.
Whilst Martinez did a good job at Sevilla B and winning promotion, the feeling around his camp is he wanted to be his own manager, have his own team, have his own ways, and not be stuck in the Emery shadow of Sevilla if things didn’t go well. Instead in 2017, he took the job at Osasuna, a recently relegated team from La Liga. It was a complete rebuild job given in La Liga, Osasuna conceded the most (94) and scored the third fewest (40) whilst finishing 19th on 22 points. The aim was to try and get into the playoffs, but that would be a tough ask given the sales of best players and ageing squad. Unfortunately for him, Osasuna missed out on the playoffs by 1 point, but they did have the best defence in the league, despite being 8th, and conceding just 34 goals in 42 games. But this is where the biggest team in the City came calling; Granada. They realised they needed someone who can work on a shoe string budget in comparison to the rest of the league, and get results. A Granada team who finished 10th in the Segunda, 2 places lower than Osasuna. What did Martinez do? Get them promoted at the first time of asking by finishing 2nd, again conceding the fewest goals in the division (28) in 42, and he did it with spending the least amount of money on transfers in the entire league, £75,000 to be precise on transfers. Whilst being the best team in the league defensively, Granada were also the fourth highest scorers. What comes with promotion also comes low expectation, every man and his dog assumed Granada would finish dead last, especially given 8/11 regulars in the Segunda, started in La Liga. Not just this, Granada spent £9m, which was the 4th fewest expenditure.. to finish 7th and qualify for the Europa League. It wasn’t a fluke either, because the underlying metrics back up the results. 8th for Expected points, 8th for Expected goals against, 11th for Expected goals for. And they did this by beating Barcelona, Real Betis, Real Sociedad, Athletic Bilbao, and picking up draws vs Villarreal, Atletico Madrid, and giving the top teams away from home seriously hard games, by only losing 1-0 to Barcelona, out played Real Madrid and deserved more. When they beat Barcelona 2-0 at home, it moved Granada to the top of La Liga.
The following season was much harder for Granada, due to having to play a lot more games having qualified for the Europa League. They still did well in the league by finishing 9th, and again beating Barcelona away. Another difference was the style shift due to balancing the games they had to play. Granada defended deeper, slowed their high press and went direct a bit more than usual, it was something Martinez tweaked in the season due to the mental and physical fatigue that was being put on his players. But Granada did well in Europe — won 8 of 15 games, beating PSV and Napoli in the process, before being knocked out by Manchester United in the Quarter Finals. What’s important to mention here is Diego Martinez in his entire career as manager has only spent a combined £15m on transfer fees, and he took a 10th placed Segunda side to the Europa League within two seasons, It’s pretty remarkable isn’t it?
But what is Martinez’ style of play? well as I mentioned earlier, he is from the school of thought of Unai Emery, but there is one clear difference, and that’s off the ball. Martinez likes his teams to have a high line and be aggressive in their press, mainly so they can swarm the box and score from high turn overs, mainly in the wider zones of the pitch. That’s the main principles of his teams, because he’s a manager that adapts and changes the style depending on the team he faces. He once said “Give me lemons and I’ll make lemonade, give me oranges and I’ll make orangeade” when discussing how he likes his teams to set up, it all depends on what he has at his disposal. It’s high fitness, defensive structure and planned attacks in wide areas. Martinez in an interview with Dario de Sevilla said “I like things about many coaches, some strangers, basketball or even handball. It all depends on the type of player you have. You must find a way or get an organisation to get the best out of them.” A La Liga expert said “Granada can go long when required, or play beautiful football when required, Diego and his team are capable of adapting to anything.” He then went onto say “Diego does not see himself as the star, nor does he see individual players as the stars: he wants to create a club where the only thing that matters is ‘the team’ … you need to harness a spirit of sacrifice, of shared motivation, of compassion.”
But why would he come to Watford? well he and Gino Pozzo have a good relationship, Diego was at the training ground last summer learning English and looking at how Watford operate, it’s well documented that the hierarchy at Watford are big admirers of the Spaniard. Martinez did an interview with Sid Lowe for the Guardian in 2021, and he said “I saw English football and had to experience it, The Premier League and the Championship is like no other. The first lessons in language and culture came at Biggleswade at the ninth level of the pyramid, football in a pure form. Others came across the country, including at Watford – “they were very good with me and, madre mía, they have incredible resources; not just financial but the people, the ideas, the structure.” — He also fits the idea of what the Watford powers that be want, and that’s someone to emulate what Eddie Howe did at Bournemouth by creating a connection with the fans, and having someone that can grow with the club. However, with Watford likely to get relegated, the chances of a manager of Martinez’ calibre coming to the club are very likely to diminish, but never say never. Jose Manuel Garcia said to El Confidencial — “Today he (Martinez) is an idol of the fans, people who break their hands applauding a team that is not afraid of anything. And who believe at face value what Diego Martínez says.” Watford fans just want a team that they can identify with and be proud of, is it that hard to be likeable? If you want someone who can bring all of that, whilst overachieving with everything he does, Diego Martinez should be the man to save the Pozzo’s from more errors.