The last FIFA date was a new missed opportunity for the Argentine team to come face to face with elite teams. The friendlies against El Salvador and Costa Rica once again revealed a pending issue on the part of the Argentine Football Association (AFA): finding suitable rivals for a team that is nothing less than the world champion. Above all, when other South American teams had the opportunity to face top opponents: Venezuela and Ecuador, against Italy; Colombia, against Spain; Brazil, against Spain and England, or Chile, against France.
That is why the statements of Emiliano Martínez about the disagreement over not having friction with rivals at the level of a world champion team. The goalkeeper who was a hero in the consecration of Qatar criticized the choice of the last opponents of the Scaloneta: “Without disrespecting El Salvador, we would have liked to play with a world-class team. We needed a great game in Europe with England, with Spain… But hey, it is what it is, we had to play with them and we played to the death. It is the same whether it is El Salvador or Brazil in the Maracaná or France in the Lusail: we always play the same and if we win 3 to 0 we want to score more goals,” said Dibu in an interview with DSports.
Those of Dibu were the first statements in this regard from a protagonist of the Argentine national team, in the midst of rumors that indicate that the lack of hierarchy rivals was one of the reasons for the supposed short circuit between Lionel Scaloni and the AFA leadership, which It made the coach doubt whether to continue with his cycle.
In another part of the interview, Dibu highlighted the good relationship that exists between all the goalkeepers who compete for the national team’s goal. And he told an emotional episode that he experienced after the conquest in Qatar with Franco Armani. “Franco said some words to me after the World Cup that I remember today. He told me: ‘I don’t tell this to anyone; You deserve it for how good a kid you are.’ And he almost made me cry. They are kids who, the truth is… Everything we won was thanks to them. For the energy they gave me every day training. When Franco had a game in the Copa América, I was happy that it was his turn to play,” Martínez recalled.
And he added: “The goalkeeper is selfish: I want to play every game, I want to keep a clean sheet every game. But if it’s Wálter’s turn to play [por Benítez], I want it to end with the arc at zero. And when it was Juan Musso’s turn, in Bolivia for the qualifiers, because I was suspended, I told him: ‘Enjoy it, this will stay with you for life.’ And that union in the arch is the most beautiful thing there is, not only for now, but also for the future.”
Among other things, the Aston Villa goalkeeper referred to how rivals approach Argentina’s matches and made a striking comparison between the Boca and River stadiums, where the team played the last qualifying matches. “The only one who played us man to man was Uruguay, but on a field that was very close, which favored Uruguay’s game more, because La Bombonera is smaller than River’s field. “On River’s field it would have been another game.”