Emiliano Martínez: From Almost Goodbye to European Glory
Emiliano Martínez stands on the brink of another piece of history, and he knows exactly how close he came to watching it all unfold from somewhere else.
Last May, after Aston Villa’s final game of the 2024-25 season against Tottenham, the World Cup winner walked around Villa Park in tears, waving to the crowd as if closing a chapter. It looked like goodbye. It felt like goodbye.
It wasn’t.
On Wednesday in Istanbul, the 33-year-old walks out not as a departing hero, but as the heartbeat of a side one match away from becoming European champions, chasing Villa’s first major trophy in 30 years against Freiburg.
From almost farewell to forever
Martínez arrived at Villa in September 2020. He has grown into far more than just a signing who worked out. He has become a symbol.
He admits that emotional lap of honour against Spurs was real, raw, and rooted in uncertainty. But his message now is unmistakable: he chose to stay, and he believes he chose right.
“I said goodbye and I cried when I left my family from Argentina to England, and I'm still with family,” he said, drawing a straight line between home and the Holte End.
He spoke of loyalty, not nostalgia. “Sometimes football can change, managers come and go. It doesn’t mean I don’t have full respect and love for the club. I had a commitment with Aston Villa, I am a World Cup winner with Aston Villa and I won two golden gloves.
“I will always and forever love this club no matter what. Some day I’ll retire and someone else will go between the sticks.”
That last line lands with weight. He knows his place in Villa’s story. He also knows it isn’t finished.
Emery, the architect, and a united dressing room
If Martínez is the emotional engine, Unai Emery is the architect. The goalkeeper’s admiration for his head coach is unfiltered.
“We have a top coach – we don’t wish [to have] anyone else on the bench apart from him leading us to a European final,” Martínez said.
That sense of unity has defined Villa’s rise from survival scraps to European contenders. “When we stick together and fight together we can beat anybody. I am really proud to stay and I made the right choice.”
Those aren’t the words of a man with one eye on the exit. They sound like a cornerstone speaking.
A goalkeeper who lives for the shoot-out
Martínez has built a reputation as one of the game’s great penalty specialists, from Copa América to the World Cup. The stage in Istanbul could yet demand that skillset again.
He would rather Villa settle it earlier, but the competitor in him almost relishes the prospect.
“I always have shoot-outs in my mind. It’s something I really enjoy, it’s like different competition, I don’t know how to explain it,” he said.
Then came the wish, half-joking but rooted in the plan. “Hopefully ‘Ginny’ (John McGinn) scores two goals and we finish in 90 minutes but if not I prepared and back myself every day of the week in shoot-outs.”
That blend of confidence and preparation has carried him through the biggest nights of his career. Now it might define Villa’s.
McGinn’s proudest walk
If Martínez is the last line of defence, John McGinn has been the constant thread running through Villa’s modern era.
Signed in 2018, he helped drag the club out of the Championship and back into the Premier League. He rode out the turbulence, the “close moments, very close to going back to the Championship,” as he put it.
Now, at 31, with 10 goals across all competitions this season, he leads them into a European final.
Asked if it will be the proudest moment of his career, McGinn didn’t hesitate long. “I would say so, yeah. It has been a brilliant journey, full of ups and downs, close moments, very close to going back to the Championship.
“It fills me with pride as to where the club is now and it also fills me with pride as to where this club could go,” he said.
He echoed his manager’s message: this is not a sightseeing trip. “This isn’t something we want to come here, celebrate and have a fanfare, we want to be focused on this match. We know how difficult it is to get to a final.
“But if you ask me on a personal level, throughout the years I have been here, definitely this is the proudest moment as captain here.”
Thirty years of waiting
For Villa, Istanbul is more than a final. It is a chance to end three decades without silverware, to turn slow, patient rebuilding into something tangible, something that can be lifted under the floodlights.
For Martínez, it is the vindication of a decision made in the quiet of last summer, after the tears, after the doubts.
He stayed. He committed. Now he stands one game away from writing his name into Aston Villa history in bold, permanent ink.
