Mauricio Pochettino is a candidate to direct a Selection of historical rivalry with Argentina

Almost seven months after his departure from paris saint germainthe name of Maurice Pochettino began to play strongly in Europe. Is that the Argentine DT, currently without a team, is one of the main candidates of the Belgian Football Federation to succeed the Spaniard Robert Martinezwho left his position in the selection of Belgium after elimination in the first round in Qatar 2022.

This was confirmed this Thursday by the Belgian outlet Nieuwsblad, which also indicated that the Argentine is not the only one targeted by the former footballer Frank Vercauteren, who deals with the search for the new DT for the next Eurocup. Other important figures such as German also appear in the list of names. Joachim Bass, world champion in 2014 with Germany, and the Portuguese André Villas-Boas.

Poche is highly regarded in European football and has the advantage of already knowing several Belgian national players such as Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld, who coached at Tottenham.

On the low side, Since his departure from the German team after the Euro 2020 failure, he has not managed again and he wouldn’t look bad by returning to activity in front of another team. From him, Villas-Boas has also managed several Belgian players, such as Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea or the duo Axel Witsel and Nicolas Lombaerts at Zenit.

Roberto Martínez, the new coach of Portugal

Portugal already have a replacement for Fernando Santos to face the next European. This is Roberto Martinez, the Spaniard who left his post at the helm of Belgium after their elimination in the group stage of the last World Cup. And it has already been officially presented with a press conference.

The Spanish coach has reached an agreement with the Portuguese football federation to take over the team from the next European qualifying match. Martínez will be in charge of both Euro 2024 and World Cup 2026 qualifying.

Martínez achieved the best classification in the history of the Belgian team, with that third place achieved in Russia 2018. In addition, he remained at the top of the FIFA rankings for a long time.

Portugal said goodbye earlier than expected in Qatar and with part of the squad dissatisfied with the DT, including Cristiano Ronaldo, who lost ownership during the Cup. That’s why the Portuguese Football Federation looked for a manager with experience in the World Cup and managing complicated dressing rooms.

“Football decisions are made on the pitch. I don’t make decisions in the office. My starting point is the list from the last World Cup and Cristiano is a player on that list. He has been in the national team for 19 years and deserves the respect to sit down and talk. And we’ll talk tomorrow,” he said of the current Al-Nassr player.