Interview with Carles Marc Martinez of Southern FC - Brains with Brawn
Interview by Christopher KL Lau
In Hong Kong, one of resurgent Southern FC's best signings this season is Carles Marc Martinez. The Spanish midfielder hails from Valencia and has added a new dimension to his new team's style of play.
Martinez has had a long journey from his native land and has made it to Hong Kong via both Romania and Poland. A very intelligent player both on and off the field, he became fluent in Polish during this time in Poland. He is a worldly person and is passionate about football and was happy to talk about La Liga in a recent interview whereby he shared this views on Spanish football.
"Many global football fans are missing a lot of things (if they do not watch Spanish football) because there are three very big teams in Spain and out of the best five teams in the world, around three are Spanish. For me, in my opinion, I know Spanish is the best football in the world and this is not because I am biased. This is because in the European Champion's League, Spanish teams have won many titles and this is also the same in the Europa League."
Martinez also discussed the technical issue of the game in Spain which is technically very advanced.
"If you watch Spanish teams then they are among the best of all. If you watch Valencia this season then Valencia have a really good coach in Marcelino García Toral whose defensive tactics are great.
If you like attacking football then you can watch Real Betis as they try and play football and it is amazing to watch. You can also watch Seville who play attractive football as they have fast transitions and always press the other teams."
Martinez urged fans around the world to watch more Spanish football when the chance arose.
"You can watch many teams in the Spanish league and they can show you great football and this is my advice to all football fans: watch Spanish football as you can really enjoy it."
The subject of why the Spanish national team underachieved for so long also came up and he offered this view:
"I played in the national team at the under 16, 17 and 19 level and we won everything including the European championships but when we speak of the first team; quarter-finals, group stages then we say 'what happened?"
He cited the late Luis Aragonés as one of the main factors in the shift in mindset and mentality.
"The main change was due to Luis Aragonés who made us focus on one style. We had good players and we played more competitive games and we had small players like Xavi and Andrés Iniesta who added skill and we added a great methodology of work which in other countries they do not seem to have."
In terms of fans watching La Liga in Asia, he stressed that weather was a factor in terms of when teams played their games which meant some games are shown very late in the Asia Pacific region.
"Spain has the handicap of the weather [for televised kick off times in Asia], which is from August until October, as you cannot play in September at 2pm (Spanish time) if you play in Valencia now, then it is like the weather here in Hong Kong!"
Thank You!