New Delhi: Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez turned out to be a hero for Argentina in a crucial penalty shootout in the Copa America semifinal against Colombia. Martinez who made his Argentina debut a few months back, saved three crucial penalties to laid the foundation of Argentina’s emphatic win.

Martinez showed immense confidence in himself to get into the Colombia penalty takers’  minds. He got on to their nerves with his dirty mind games.

“I’m sorry but I’m eating you up brother”, Martinez said just before Davinson Sanchez struck his penalty. The Aston Villa glovesman stuck to his words and denied the shot to enter the goal.

After that Martinez mocked Yerry Mina ahead of his shot and said, “You’re laughing but you’re nervous. You’re nervous. Hey, the ball is ahead of the penalty mark. Yeah, turn a blind eye. I already know you. I know where you’ll shoot and then save it. I’m eating you up, brother.”


Argentina captain Lionel Messi also mocked Mina after he missed the shot. Messi screamed at Mina: “Dance Now! Dance Now!.”

Emiliano continued his mind games as his next target was Miguel Borja

“Are you scared? You were running your mouth at half-time, huh? Where are you going brother. I know where you’re going. So you like looking, huh? Come on, look me in the face. Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” Martinez said. However, things didn’t go in his favour and Borja scored from the spot.

Messi hailed the Argentine keeper after his heroics and called him a phenomenon.

“We have Emi who is a phenomenon,” Messi said of the Villa goalkeeper, per Goal, after full-time.

“We trusted him. We achieved the goal of being able to play all the games and now we are going to the final,” he added.