2024-04-20 03:01:00
The president of Lille of France, Olivier Létang, criticized the Argentine goalkeeper of English Aston Villa, Emiliano “Dibu” Martínez, for his gestures and celebrations in the penalty shootout in which the Birmingham team won 4 to 3 in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Conference League final.
After what was the penalty shootout in which Spanish Unai Emery’s team defeated Portuguese Paulo Fonseca’s team, the president of the French club criticized the world champion with the Argentine National Team for his gestures and celebrations to the Lille fans by containing two of the five shots in the series.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I think we waste a lot of time talking about this guy whose attitude is not that of a very, very high-level athlete, in my opinion. Because in high-level sport, in defeat or victory “We must remain calm and elegant. So I don’t feel like continuing to talk. I prefer that we focus on ourselves and highlight all the positive aspects of this night, because there are some,” said the president of the institution. French since December 2020.
Throughout the match at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium, the Aston Villa goalkeeper was harassed by the Lille crowd due to his performance in the World Cup final in which Martínez was key to Argentina’s victory over France and, at Just like in this UEFA Conference League quarterfinal series, he celebrated his saves with dances that made a deep impression on the French.
After 3 to 3 on aggregate, Aston Villa and Lille defined their place in the semi-finals from the twelve steps and the goalkeeper became a giant by containing the first penalty against the Algerian Nabil Bentaleb, after which he celebrated by making the gesture of silence to the fans of the French team.
In the fifth shot for Lille, the Argentine saved Benjamin André’s penalty and celebrated by dancing to the public of the French team that ended up being eliminated by Douglas Luiz’s conversion.
“I think that, like everyone else, the Aston Villa goalkeeper had already received a yellow card. He received a second one, so we thought he could be sent off. And that was when the referees explained to us that, when a penalty is taken, it is They reset all the counters to zero and, therefore, there was no red card just for the sake of it” Létang concluded.