Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
What respect He bearly scraped past Japan, beat the worst brazil team in 50 years and got destroyed by france.
Yeah top respect
That seems a little harsh.
I would be inclined to agree with the sentiment that small sample size makes it very hard to evaluate international managers. Low and del Bosque each managed to significantly dent their reputations on the basis of three matches in their World Cup title defenses. Was that bad luck, solely on the players or bad management? I don't know that there are easy answers there. I'd say the managers in both cases shoulder at least some of the blame on the basis of their squad selections.
I'll say this for Martinez - he made the right subs against Japan and he put together a game plan that beat Brazil. He also significantly misfired on solving the Meunier yellow card accumulation puzzle. I think he deserves credit and blame in equal measure. But when we're evaluating all of three knockout stage matches (the gimmes and the sub game in the group stage, and the exhibition for third place don't really count for much), there's room for alternative interpretations.
