Even with a broken right ring finger, 33-year-old Emiliano Martinez kept thwarting the Spaniards. “It’s all in your mind,” he said of the pain. “It doesn’t affect me.”
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Emiliano Martínez made the rounds and comforted his shell-shocked teammates one by one. Dispensed hugs. Tapped shoulders. Kissed foreheads. As the Argentine players sat in a circle — some absently gazing into the stands, others staring into the grass below — their nearly unbeatable goalkeeper tried to save them from despondence.
Sunday afternoon’s World Cup final did not go as planned for Argentina. Not only did Spain deny the Argentines a second straight title with the 1-0 extra-time triumph, La Roja suffocated its opponent with on-the-ball precision from beginning to end. Spain controlled 68 percent of the possession and held Argentina without a shot on target. Enzo Fernández’s red card right before extra time plunged the defending champion into survival mode. Argentine icon Lionel Messi was comprehensively neutralized.
“In the end, they deserved the victory,” Argentina Coach Lionel Scaloni said. “That’s reality. We need to accept it. But we were close, to be honest.”
He’s not wrong. Argentina did nearly push the game to a shootout. In that scenario, few would have bet against Martínez. Not after his clutch performance powered Argentina to a shootout win over France in the final four years ago. Not after he delivered an 11-save master class against Spain — a record for the World Cup final. Not after the 33-year-old kept thwarting the Spaniards with a broken right ring finger.
“I don’t want to be making the headlines,” Martínez said Friday via an interpreter. “I want my teammates to be the stars. The goalkeepers are the only ones who don’t score the goals, don’t celebrate the goals. They are on their own, and they don’t tend to be protagonists. I’ve never wanted to be that. But if the moment comes? I will try.”
Sure enough, Martínez stepped up. He did well to snare Mikel Oyarzabal’s one-timer late in the first half, ensuring that Argentina got to intermission deadlocked. After halftime, he denied Ferran Torres’s 67th-minute header and Pedri’s long-range effort. He also lunged to keep Aymeric Laporte off the scoreboard in the 81st.
When Spanish prodigy Lamine Yamal eyed immortality deep into second-half stoppage time, Martínez steered aside the swerving free kick with a soaring intervention. His reaction stop on Nico Williams’s deft deflection early in extra time was another one for the highlight reel. Spain finally broke through on Torres’s 106th-minute tally, but there was nothing Martínez could do about the emphatic point-blank finish.
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To boot, Martínez stabilized the Argentine back line through one setback after another. Three of the four starting defenders — Lisandro Martínez, Cristian Romero and Gonzalo Montiel — came off with injuries. Fernández‘s ejection after two yellow cards reduced Argentina to 10 men for extra time.
Then there was the discomfort that surely came with each stinging save after Martínez broke his finger while warming up for English club Aston Villa before the Europa League final May 20. (He naturally notched a shutout in that title game as Villa thrashed Germany’s Freiburg.) Addressing reporters Friday, Martínez said that he ignored advice to undergo surgery and that he wasn’t “feeling good” entering the tournament. Still, he learned to block out the pain.
“It’s all in your mind,” Martínez said. “It doesn’t affect me.”
Martínez’s career has been a curiosity. Born in the seaside city of Mar del Plata, the 6-foot-5 shot-stopper joined Arsenal’s youth academy as a teenager and spent a decade with the English Premier League power. But he never got a proper shot at the No. 1 spot, instead toiling as a backup or embarking on loan after loan to smaller clubs (six in all).
It wasn’t until Martínez joined Villa in 2020 at age 28 that he locked down a long-term starting job. He made his debut for Argentina at the end of that season — a decade after earning his first national team call-up. And he entrenched his place in Argentine lore in the 2022 World Cup final, when his charging kick save denied France’s Randal Kolo Muani at the end of extra time and he stoned Kingsley Coman in the subsequent shootout.
Martínez was named the top goalkeeper of that World Cup, and he claimed FIFA’s goalkeeper of the year prize as well. He earned the FIFA award again in 2024, when he backstopped Argentina to the Copa América crown. Still, some questioned his status as a truly elite goalkeeper in the absence of a transfer to a traditional powerhouse. (A rumored move to Manchester United in 2025 fell apart.)
It’s safe to say Martínez’s performance Sunday silenced such doubts. Even if this final didn’t end with Martínez lifting the World Cup trophy, he delivered a stand-on-his-head performance for the ages all the same.
“Things can go well or bad,” Martínez said before the match. “But we will always remember these moments.”
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