PORTRAIT – Decisive during the penalty shootout of the Argentina-France final, Emiliano Martinez has been making headlines ever since with provocations and obscene gestures.
The stopgap at Arsenal
This is the story of an eternal hope condemned to benches and loans. Born in 1992 in Mar del Plata, the fourth largest city in Argentina, Emiliano Martinez was spotted very early by Arsenal. He landed there at the age of 17 and stayed there until he was 28. But in just over ten years under contract, he played only 38 games, systematically relegated to second or even third goalkeeper in the hierarchy. Barred by Manuel Almunia, Wojciech Szczesny, David Ospina, Petr Cech or even Bernd Leno, “Dibu” is loaned no less than six times to other second-tier clubs in England such as Sheffield or Wolverhampton, and even to Getafe in Spain. In London, he still won three Community Shields, but above all the FA Cup in 2020, of which he played in the final as a holder. His tears of joy at the end of the meeting moved the football world. “I worked very hard at the club for ten years for opportunities like this. I couldn’t be prouder“, he confided to the microphone…
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