According to the FIFA rankings, Portugal is currently considered the seventh best nation in world football.
To judge the work of a coach, it is usual to base ourselves on the performances of his national team in the biggest competitions. Indeed, the World Cups, the Euros for European nations, or even the Copas America for their South American counterparts are inevitably the best benchmarks for judging the capacity of a selection to perform well in a high-stakes event.
The FIFA ranking, however, makes it possible to analyze the evolution of the results of a selection according to certain criteria, also established according to the other competing nations. In this respect, has Portugal improved since the arrival of Roberto Martinez as coach?
If we consider the FIFA ranking as a good benchmark for the level of performance of each selection, Portugal has indeed been progressing since January 2023. A period during which Robert Martinez took over a national team which was coming out of the longest cycle of its history, with a certain Fernando Santos at its helm. At that time, Portugal was in ninth place in the FIFA rankings, ahead of nations like Italy, Croatia and the Netherlands.
A little over a year and a half later, Portugal is in seventh position. The three nations mentioned above were all ahead of us, thanks in particular to the excellent qualifying phase for Euro 2024 that the Seleção played in the first year of the Roberto Martinez era.
Although it was ahead of Italy, Croatia and the Netherlands in the FIFA rankings, Portugal was still outclassed by Spain. 10th in January 2023, La Roja is now on the podium of the best football nations, following its title of European champion regained this year.
On the world stage, Portugal has therefore continued to make good progress since the arrival in office of Roberto Martinez. However, this is not yet enough to satisfy observers of the Seleção, eager to return to the forefront given the quality presented by the current Portuguese generations.
For the boss of the Portuguese national team, there remain several steps to take to convince his people. One of them is to allow Portugal to move closer to a trophy in the coming months. The Nations League, which Roberto Martinez will return to this Friday evening in a match against Poland, can thus be a great objective to achieve, before a first World Cup which will inevitably be eagerly awaited by supporters.
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