Emiliano Martínez just can’t help himself, and Lille was the latest victim of Emiliano Martínez’s mind games during penalty kick shootouts. The Argentine World Champion continued his heroics in penalty kicks which began way back when Argentina won the Copa America in 2021.
In Qatar 2022, it was the Netherlands and France that suffered the antics of El Dibu, now you can add Lille who after a hard-fought series with Aston Villa drew 3-3 on aggregate.
Then came the penalty kicks where Benjamin André and Nabil Bentaleb missed on their attempts despite Martínez being shown a second yellow card during the shootout but was not ejected from the match through a loophole in the rules.
Olivier Letang angry at Dibu Martínez
Lille president Olivier Letang was not thrilled with Dibu’s dancing and antics and slammed the Argentine keeper who has broken French hearts before, “I don’t want to spend time talking about that young man, who has an attitude that is not of a high-level athlete because in high-level sports, in victory or defeat, one must remain calm and be elegant.”
Someone should have said that to Martinez who brought out his inner child and uploaded an Instagram story of a picture of himself dancing with the phrase, “when you’re drunk and just want to twerk.”
Martinez also noted in a post-match interview, “The fans motivate me, when they throw things at my back… all my life they have thrown things at my back. And I always got up.”
Emi On Off
Off the field, El Dibu Martínez is a folk hero in Argentina and Orsai Audiovisuales will be bringing the Argentine’s life story to cartoon form. The project is called Emi On Off and producer and actress Magui Bravi spoke to Urban Pitch about what the animated version of El Dibu will entitle.
“It’s an animated series that will be drawn by Liniers, one of the most famous cartoonists in all of Argentina, and written by Hernán Casciari, and El Dibu himself is involved. His people reached out to Casciari, because at first El Dibu wanted to do a book, but Casciari changed his mind to do an animated project.”
“(Martinez) has something in his personality that makes him very likable to people,” Bravi said. “He’s a kid from the neighborhood, a person who became a superstar, and you don’t see him as an unapproachable person. I think that generated a lot of interest from the people to learn more about his lifestory”.
