ROBERTO Martinez was disappointed to have missed out on a Group B encounter against Wales following the EURO2020 draw in Bucharest.
The Belgium manager began his coaching career in the Principality with Swansea City and was Everton manager when the club spent £28m to bring Romelu Lukaku, Belgium's top scorer in qualifying, to Goodison Park.
There are a host of other connections between the players in Martinez's squad and those in Ryan Giggs' Wales side but instead Belgium, the winners of Scotland's group during the qualification campaign, were paired with another team they know pretty well, Russia, who finished second in the same section, with Denmark and Finland also drawn out of the hat.
“Obviously, because of the staff background, it would’ve been fantastic to play against Wales, but Finland will bring the emotion and the excitement of participating in a major tournament for the first time in their history, and that’s something that will bring extra spice into the group,” said Martinez, who will face two tough 'away' games against Russia and Denmark in their respective host cities.
“It’s probably the hardest we could’ve had, playing Russia in Saint Petersburg in the first game, and then Denmark in the second in Copenhagen, and then going back to Saint Petersburg [for Finland]. Now, we need to adjust our preparation and we’ll make sure that the logistics are just right.
Despite the size of the task facing his side, Martinez says Belgium will relish the challenge, having reached the last eight at EURO 2016 in France and the semi-finals of World Cup 2018.
“There’s never been a tournament where you face two hosts, and it’s tough, it’s difficult. It’s difficult to understand,” added Martinez. “You are seeded, and you don’t play in a neutral venue. I think, as a seeded nation, you should be playing at least only one host, and you should be able to play teams that you’ve been above in a neutral venue.
“But that’s the beautiful aspect of this competition. If you want to be a nation that is going to progress to the final, you could be facing four or five host nations on the way to the final, and that’s why this tournament is quite unique.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article