Saturday, August 15, 2009

Dream debut for one of Wigan's "Three Amigos"

I just watched live on TV as visiting WIGAN ATHLETIC defeated a rather lackluster ASTON VILLA, 2-0, to give ROBERTO MARTINEZ a victory on his PREMIER LEAGUE managerial debut.
Martinez already boasts a great playing history with the club.
Wigan chairman DAVE WHELAN brought Martinez and fellow Spaniards JESUS SEBA and ISIDRO DIAZ to northwest England in July 1995, when the Latics were a lower-division side struggling for attention in a rugby league stronghold.
The trio became known as the "THREE AMIGOS," and Martinez and Diaz became the first Spaniards to play in the F.A. Cup. It was an era when foreign players remained a novelty in the English game -- particularly in the lower leagues.
Martinez spent six seasons at Wigan, scoring 23 goals, as the club began a rise to the top tier.
He entered management at a relatively young age with SWANSEA CITY -- one of his clubs as a player.
Martinez won 63 of his 125 matches in charge in Wales. He joined Wigan as manager during the recent close season.
He enjoyed a dream start today, guiding the Latics to an opening-day away win. I was pleased to see it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Webbie - FootieAndMusic said...

So on last Saturday morning I was visiting in Illnois and my host said that they had FSC (FoxSoccerChannel).
Excellent, I said. I wasn't expecting to be able to see the opening Premier League weekend so this was a bonus.

The featured match was Aston Villa v Wigan and although I would have liked to have seen my home team, but again I was happy that I could see *a* match.

After the game was over my hosts came back in and said that they also had that other channel that shows soccer - Setanta. I switched over to discover that they had just finishing showing their live match, which was Blackburn against.... my team (Man City).

Ah well.

As to the Villa/Wigan match - I don't know what either went wrong for O'Neill or went right for Martinez. Villa didn't play that bad, maybe it was a sleepy start for them. Well done to Wigan though.

2:34 PM  

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