NY Times - Wigan Athletic - The English Barça

Wigan Athletics recent form is making the club the talk of football worldwide, following yet another scintillating performance at the weekend that saw Champions League hopefuls Newcastle humiliated in both the four nil score line and the manner with which the Latics beat their more illustrious opponents, the New York Times labelled Martinez's team 'the English Barça'

A very good piece, bar a couple of easily ignored inaccuracies, by reporter Rob Hughes, gave a great account, not only of Saturday's game but also of the way the Latics have progressed this season

Hughes makes a telling statement when asking how we came from eight straight defeats in the autumn to be a team with such fluidity and confidence in the spring, he says: Three things happened: The owner backed the coach, the coach stuck to his principles and the team started to believe.

Martinez promised us something special, he said it would take time to get his players into the club, it looks like we have now got that something special, I can't wait for next season, the confidence in the team and their belief that Bobby`s way is the right way is there for all to see, the knockers who said there was no team spirit, we were going nowhere with our crazy formations, we couldn't defend, we couldn't score, we had no cohesion, well those knockers have also been turned by the great form

Martinez has vision, he sees the long term not just the here and now, he sees that to be successful you need to build, to build for the future, you need to build the club not just the eleven players on the pitch, he had a vision for the Latics and it looks like that vision is now coming to fulfilment

To read the piece in the New York Times visit www.nytimes.com/soccer

He does it his way

By permission of Bernard Platt/Wigan Athletic

















Latics and Proud



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