A World Cup Legend
Photo by Rhett Lewis on Unsplash
If you’re at all into football (soccer), you’ll no doubt have watched the World Cup Final yesterday.
It was, in my view, the greatest world cup final in history - with goals, drama, late comebacks and ultimately, penalties. Argentina were amazing winners and, of course, as everyone’s talking about, Lionel Messi got his World Cup, rounding out one of the most storied careers in the history of the sport.
Messi was named the player of the tournament and many consider him to be The Greatest Of All Time, especially now that he’s won literally every trophy and medal he’s fought for in his incredible career.
As great as his story is - and Messi has clearly been the player of this World Cup and, frankly, the last 2 decades - there’s another Argentinian player who’s story is as compelling but in a different way: Argentine goalkeeper Emi Martinez, who’s heroics kept the Argentine team in the tournament more than once.
Martinez left his home country in 2010 to play for Arsenal, leaving his family behind in order to better provide for them and get his big break. But the “big break” wasn’t what he expected.
Instead of becoming a starter at Arsenal, he was loaned from club to club and spent the next 10 years on six different loan spells. Many would have given up and moved to a different, smaller club (such as Spurs :-)), but Martinez stuck to his guns, eager to break into the Arsenal first team.
His chance came in 2020, as a result of an injury to first choice goalkeeper, Bernd Leno. Martinez stepped in and performed incredibly, becoming first choice for the rest of the season, ultimately playing a key role in securing an FA Cup Final victory for the club.
He then moved to Aston Villa, but continued to show enough ability to become Argentina’s first choice goalkeeper, ultimately helping them not only secure a path to the World Cup, but helping them win it. Emi Martinez is now a World Champion.
But think about those 10 years. Think about the mental strength needed. Think about the self-confidence required to maintain your sense of who you are. It’s not hard to look at his story and imagine how he could have given up or made a different decision in any of his loan spells over those 10 years.
It’s easy to become disheartened and stop believing that you could play in the big leagues. It’s much, much harder to keep your head down and plow your way through it. But that’s what Martinez did. And now he’s won the World Cup.
To me, that’s an incredible lesson. And while Messi is amazing, and while he is the GOAT, it’s worth giving Emi Martinez kudos.
Legends don’t come in a prefabricated template, they come in all shapes and sizes. And Emi Martinez, without a doubt, is a legend.
