Continuing with their England tour, Argentine outlet TyC Sport now featured an exclusive interview with an Aston Villa star.
That’s obviously Emiliano Martinez, who still gets great love from his home country after being one of their World Cup heroes.
The interview naturally had many questions about the national team’s campaign in Qatar, especially the final, where the Aston Villa goalkeeper made decisive saves which led Argentina to the title.
The main play continues to be the shot by France forward Randal Kolo Muani, which happened in the last minute of extra time, when the match was tied 3-3, and Martinez managed to stop it.
Speaking to TyC Sports, the Aston Villa star explained every single detail of how that play went, claiming he only did his best for the ball to hit him.
“When Muani gets it, it gets a bit diagonally. I said, well, I’ll close in slowly, I didn’t rush, because otherwise it itches on top. I had to leave him an angle so that the last vision of his is the near post. Then I played with my hand and foot, praying ‘please hit me’,” Emiliano Martinez told TyC Sports.
“I wanted him to hit me in the face, I didn’t care where. I wanted him to hit me. I don’t turn around, I close my eyes and get all hard and say ‘hit me, that’s all I ask of you’. I’m so tense and so hard that bounces forward.”
Martinez also explained that, in the heat of the game, he didn’t realise how important that save was. It was only after the title that he saw the fans’ reaction to that, and noticed that he had become a national hero.
“You open the social networks and there is the save, or a boy comes to sign something and the first thing they want is the save. It’s beautiful.”
“I did not realise the value it had because it was so fast, I remember that we went out quickly against the counter that we had the last one to win it with Lautaro’s header. I could not appreciate it as I appreciated it when the final was won. The first thing that was seen was that.”
