Emiliano Martinez

About Emiliano Martinez

Emiliano Martínez spent almost a decade on Arsenal's books waiting for a run of games, and then needed only a few years to become the most celebrated goalkeeper in the world. Born in September 1992 in Mar del Plata, on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, he came through Independiente in Avellaneda and was still a teenager when he crossed to England. His Arsenal spell ran from 2012 to 2020, and it is the long middle chapter of this story.

Those Arsenal years were defined by waiting. He was the young back-up, sent out on loan again and again to build experience, which is why his career includes leagues that never involved the Arsenal first team: League Two, the Championship and a season in Spain's La Liga. He kept returning to north London, kept training, and kept being behind someone else in the queue. Many goalkeepers in that position simply drift down the leagues for good.

The turn came in the summer of 2020. Injury to the first-choice keeper gave him the gloves at the end of the season, and he played in the FA Cup final that Arsenal won that August. The performance convinced Aston Villa, and he moved to Birmingham that September. At Villa Park he became first choice straight away, a vocal, aggressive shot-stopper who commands his area and is never quiet with opponents, especially when it comes to penalties. Villa supporters quickly adopted him as a cult figure, and his gestures and celebrations became part of the show at their ground.

That last trait made him famous with Argentina. Nicknamed Dibu, he made his senior international debut in 2021 and was immediately part of the Copa América title won in Brazil that summer, with heroics in a semi-final shoot-out against Colombia along the way. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar he saved shoot-out kicks against the Netherlands and in the final against France, and in the last minute of extra time of that final he blocked a point-blank chance from Randal Kolo Muani that would have won the trophy for France. He received the Golden Glove as the tournament's best goalkeeper and added another Copa América in 2024.

At Villa he has been the constant through the club's rise back to European football, including a Champions League campaign, and he remains there today.

His profile is a useful reminder that a goalkeeper's career rarely follows a straight line. Independiente as a boy, Arsenal as a patient understudy, loans across England and Spain, then Aston Villa and a national team that made him a hero: three clubs on paper, but many more stops in between.