Portugal manager Roberto Martinez acknowledged the criticism following his team's Euro 2024 performance

Portugal manager Roberto Martinez acknowledged the criticism following his team's Euro 2024 performance, emphasizing that such scrutiny comes with having a squad full of top-tier talent. Speaking ahead of Portugal's Nations League opener against Croatia on Thursday, followed by a clash with Scotland in League A Group One on Sunday, Martinez reflected on their penalty shootout loss to France in the Euro quarter-finals. Despite the disappointment, he pointed out the valuable lessons learned, expressing confidence that the team will emerge stronger from the experience.
Martinez said that the internal demands of the team are stronger than the ones of the fans and they always want to win big tournaments. The Spanish manager felt that he liked the character shown by his team and felt they did well in many aspects."Criticism is part of the demand we will always have. But the internal demands are even stronger than the demands of the fans," Martinez told a press conference on Wednesday."We always want to win but the big tournaments have the best players in the world, so games are decided by details. The detail is often a penalty where the ball goes in or out." "We showed character, we controlled the game against France and we grew a lot as a team. The group was ready to play two more games, but I really liked our character. We did very well in many aspects."