Emiliano Martinez dominates a Mailbox that also takes in GOATs and a passionate defence of the United States.
There’s football back now though so watch some of that and mail us at theeditor@football365.com
Sh*thousing goalkeepers are nothing new
Look, I get that in the modern world anything that is current becomes the most talked about thing on social media as if it is an entirely new phenomena and has never occurred before. I’m specifically talking about the s**thousery of E. Martinez which seems to be all the rage at the moment. And the irony of Ian Wright saying Martinez went too far isn’t lost on me, I’m old enough to remember what Wright got up to on a football field and believe me it was far worse than anything Martinez has done.
Can we please get this in perspective, numerous goalkeepers have acted like this, for decades, off the top of my head the two that spring to mind are Tim Krul for Holland (oh alright, Netherlands) against Costa Rica at the 2014 World Cup and Joe Hart against Italy at the European Championships in 2012 and I’m sure there are numerous others, Jordan Pickford and Aaron Ramsdale are not exactly shrinking violets when it comes to those sort of antics either.
I don’t have a particular problem with it, I appreciate it’s not a good look, but is it actually worse than making a reckless, desperate lung at Virgil Van Dijk and injuring him so that he had to miss last year’s Euros?
The thing is if you are going to do it just make sure you are brilliant at it, and it has to be said Martinez is the king of s**thousery. It struck me that despite giving away two-goal leads against Holland and France, and then being pegged back again for a third time against the French, that when it came to the penalty shoot-out against both sides the Argentinian players looked absolutely calm where as you would have expected them to be devastated. I’m sure this was because they knew, they just knew with Martinez in goal they would win, conversely the Dutch and French players look terrified.
The funny thing about Hart’s attempt at s**thousery against Italy was that not only did it not work but Pirlo made him look an utter fool with Panenka pen. Hilarious.
Guess the motto is, if you are going to be a s**thouse, be very, very good at it.
Pardeep
When does sh*thousing just become, well…
Can we all now agree that Martinez is an actual c***? Petty, embarrassing, childish. He can count himself lucky that he will never play CL cause Mbappe would absolutely wreck him. Hope 2026 they meet again in the WC.
Nik (he’s a year younger than I am, making jokes I did in middle school) Munich
Erm…
Bruno Guimaraes to Newcastle for £40m has been the Premier League signing of 2022??
Pretty sure it’s Haaland.
Nope, I have just checked. It’s definitely Haaland.
Alex, South London
Which football matches are 90 minutes of brilliance?
People writing to the mailbox moaning that greatest games of all times are actually boring….as if they expect a cataclysmic incident to occur every minutes of the 90 (plus as old school commentators used to say, “time allowed for injuries.”
Take Man City 3-2 QPR for instance. Dull as hell if you take away the Aguero 93:20.
Zabaleta’s only goal of the season thanks to Paddy Kenny’s chocolate wrists.
Lescott’s 50p head allowing QPR their cheap equaliser.
Joey Barton doing what Joey Barton does.
Mancini screaming “F*** you” to the City players after Jamie Mackie’s finest moment.
Dzeko..THERE’S STILL HOPE!
And Balotelli’s only ever assist.
Mike Dean being Mike Dean and booking Aguero for taking his shirt off. Quite right too.
But yeah, other than that, dull.
Give it a rest chaps. Just enjoy these games for what they are, especially as we get back to soporific Saturday 12:30 kick offs.
@rubym83
The next GOAT? Behave
Old man shouting at clouds here, but the amount of guff I’ve seen about Mbappe/Haaland/A.N.Other asking if they will be the next GOAT… grown ups, people who probably have mortgages and have had an argument in B&Q, using phrases like GOAT is just embarrassing.
Also, how can you be the next greatest of all time? There can surely only be one?
On a completely unrelated note, I’m not doing much work today.
Jack (Reminiscing about the halcyon days when we used phrases like Thunderb*stard) Manchester
GOATS everywhere
I know this GOAT talk is getting some exasperated but I have a slightly different question. If you were in charge of PSG and you could pick any front three from any player, past or present, at their peak who would it be?
Maradona
Van Basten
Ronaldo (original)
Well, that would be my choice, I know I’ve probably forgotten a load of players but I don’t even have Cristiano or Messi. Messi was pretty close to be honest.
Sam (Could one of you fine mailers let me know the odds of Messi doing a 2 minute dance in front of Neymar when he gets back to PSG?) Essex
The GOAT never in doubt
THANK you Tom from East London with your excellent, straight to the point(ed) letter.
Especially number 1 : 1. The GOAT. It was massively boring when there were arguments to be made. It’s done now.
It’s always been ODD as well as “boring” (agreed). As it was always bleedingly obvious to anyone with half a brain.
if there was anything remotely that could be compared as to some kind of head-to-head when both at their peak etc …. look at their time together in Spain for 9 years in La Liga.
Messi 6 Ronaldo 2
Simple huh ?
Merry Christmas.
Adam Halliday, (Atl Madrid with the other one obviously), Last day of work til 3rd January, Saigon
U.S.A U.S.A U.S.A
I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to Paul K, London’s truly odious, uninformed, and morally bankrupt letter regarding the recently concluded World Cup in Qatar and the ‘problematic’ next host, the United States of America.
Why we all love his oh-so-original and not-at-all moronic ‘The USA sucks lolz!!’ sentiments, trolling aside, are there really people so deranged as to think that Qatar has been hard done and unfairly portrayed by the ‘Western Media’? In all honesty they didn’t go far enough- we whined, little was accomplished, then we just went on with it.
If you think a de-facto authoritarian monarchy (with a veneer of extremist Wahabist theocracy tossed in for good measure) is a morally superior system of government to Western liberal, secular democracy – then you are lost.
Moral relativism aside, Paul K – are you really bringing up carbon emissions? Qatar has the worst per capita carbon emissions in the world! Almost three times that of the United States! It’s a kingdom built entirely on harvesting fossil fuels, with a dangerous level of air pollution in its own capital! If you’re gonna play the ‘first year of Uni know-it-all’ you could at least do some research.
We know that building an entire set of stadiums, roads, hotels etc. cost Qatar 205$ billion dollars (and lets not forget 6,000 migrant workers’ lives). Since morality and human lives seem like an afterthought Paul, what was the environmental impact of building those white elephants in the middle of the desert? Qatar itself is wealthy overconsumption incarnate, and their profligate World Cup whitewashing campaign is no different – take just the fields themselves, with seeds flown in from Africa, that require tens of thousands of liters of water daily, delivered via the outrageously energy wasting method of desalination? It goes on and on, see Scientific American’s ‘The World Cup is a Climate Catastrophe’.
The United States, Mexico, and Canada will be excellent (and ethically responsible) hosts for the 2026 World Cup. Why? The United States, which hosts the majority of the games, has an incredible pre-existing infrastructure to host sporting events of the highest level. America already has 40+ FIFA 5 Star level stadiums ready to go, with airports, hotels, and transportation systems that will make every fan’s experience cost effective, convenient, and comfortable.
Everyone will be welcome, drinks will flow, good natured public buffoonery will not end in a surgical removed limb or a trip to the gulag – and we’ll never have to talk about anything but football. Plus – New York City’s culture, Miami’s nightlife, California’s beaches… sure as hell beats spending a month in culturally barren desert dystopia.
See you all in 2026!
Rory, MUFC, USA