World Cup 2022 in Qatar – Emiliano Martinez slammed for ‘pretty despicable’ antics in final after heroics

Chris Sutton was certainly not impressed by Martinez’s behaviour as he played very effective mind games with some of the France players, only belatedly receiving a yellow card after some prolonged time-wasting.

It was certainly unsporting behaviour as the Aston Villa star held onto the ball instead of throwing it to the penalty taker, then proceeded to even hurl the ball away to make Aurelien Tchouameni go and retrieve it, only adding to the nerves and tension.

“I thought it was a pretty despicable thing to do [throwing the ball away]. I can understand the mind games and heat of the moment you do whatever it takes.

“But I thought that was totally unnecessary. If you’re Tchouameni walking past Martinez [in the guard of honour] you probably feel like biffing him one.

“I didn’t like that at all but I can understand Martinez in that moment trying to win a World Cup.

“But he didn’t just chuck it a couple of yards away, he launched it 15, 20 yards away. I really felt for Tchouameni in that moment.

“That wasn’t on. It would have been interesting if Martinez had been booked for that because he got one on the next penalty.”

We asked Eurosport France’s Maxime Dupuis what his view of the situation was and he was perhaps surprisingly accepting of the behaviour of the Argentine goalkeeper in denying Didier Deschamps’ side.

“He did what a goalkeeper has to do,” he said. “Not the most classy goalkeeper ever but … he did his job.”