Emiliano Martinez: The Broken Finger That Defined a World Cup Journey
Emiliano “Dibu” Martinez has had his jaw smashed, been stretchered off unconscious and now sips his meals through a blender. Yet the injury that defines him isn’t on his face. It’s on his right hand.
The Argentina No. 1 broke his ring finger in Aston Villa’s Europa League final win over Freiburg on May 20, an apparently perfect night that hid a brutal twist. The pain started during the celebrations. The scans told the rest.
Finger broken. Surgery recommended. World Cup in doubt.
“I said, ‘No! I’m not making to the World Cup!’ and started to cry. I was out,” Martinez told Argentine reporter Gaston Edul on his podcast. On the other end of his phone, Lionel Scaloni tried to steady him. The Argentina manager sent a simple message: “Whether or not you make it I’m going to back you.”
That was enough. With Argentina goalkeeping coach Martín Tocalli and trainer Dani Martinez, Dibu made the call that would shape his career. No surgery. No rest. He would play through it.
The price was savage. Training sessions turned into a kind of controlled torture. Martinez described seeing stars as he tried to avoid using his right hand just to push himself off the turf after a save. Every fall carried a calculation. Every landing, a risk.
Most nights, he said, the pain stayed with him until midnight. The finger swelled and darkened, “like a blood sausage.” Sleep came late, and never easily.
Eventually, science and stubbornness met in the middle. A custom finger cast went over the damaged digit. Adidas stepped in with a specialized glove to shield the hand. It wasn’t a cure. It was a compromise.
He played anyway.
Martinez stood in goal for every minute of Argentina’s World Cup campaign, a run that ended in heartbreak: a 1-0 defeat to Spain in extra time in the final. Across eight matches, he made 20 saves and conceded eight goals, all with a finger that doctors had wanted to open up on an operating table.
That decision did more than keep him in a World Cup. It altered his club future.
An Italian side – widely reported to be Juventus – had lined up a move to sign him from Aston Villa. The finger changed their plans. They walked away. The path opened to Chelsea instead, where he now wears blue and carries the scars of that choice into every game he plays.
At least, he will again when he’s cleared to return.
Right now, Martinez is sidelined after a sickening collision with Everton centre-back Jarrad Branthwaite left him knocked out cold. His head and neck were braced as he left the pitch on a stretcher, a chilling sight for any teammate or supporter. In the interview, he admitted he remembers the foul and little else.
The aftermath has been as grim as it sounds. At the time of speaking, he couldn’t even chew. His usual diet now goes into a blender and comes out at the consistency of baby food. That’s how a World Cup goalkeeper eats while his jaw heals.
The jaw, he insists, will be fine. It will mend, and relatively soon.
The finger is different.
The operation to finally repair that fourth finger still sits on hold, a recommendation ignored once already. Doctors have warned him the truth: even if he goes under the knife now, it will never be what it might have been had he followed their advice and missed the World Cup.
Martinez doesn’t flinch at the trade-off. He knows exactly what he chose.
“We represented the country as well as possible. At the end, what stays is what you represent to the country,” he said.
The aftermath of that lost final cut him deeply. “I went back to Argentina, which I didn’t want to. I was really bad. My kid asked me to go back, and I went and felt a lot more love than when we won in Qatar.”
That is the calculation behind the crooked finger and the sleepless nights. A broken hand, a wired jaw, a move diverted and then reborn in London – all weighed against the chance to stand in goal for Argentina on the biggest stage.
For Dibu Martinez, there’s no doubt. Given the same choice, with the same pain and the same risk, he would do it all again.
