World Team 2022 according to UA-Football. Goalkeeper ᐉ UA-Football

In the last week of each year, the UA-Football editorial team nominates its iconic team, made up of the best footballers in the world. 2022 will be no exception, bringing us Real Madrid’s Champions League triumph, Milan’s return to the top in Italy and, of course, Argentina’s World Cup victory. It is clear that the choice is subjective. Someone will agree, and someone will find more worthy candidates. We will read your arguments for or against with great pleasure in the comments. So, to your attention – the symbolic team of the world 2022 according to the editorial staff of UA-Football. The first in line is the goalkeeper.

World Final in Qatar. Comparison teams of Argentina and France. On the scoreboard, after the results of the enchanting 120 minutes, they flaunt two triples. The third minute added to the second overtime (!!!) is about to expire. The fatal mistake of the Argentines’ defense leads to the fact that the striker of the reigning world champions Randal Colo-Muani falls at the goalkeeper’s meeting. In front of the attacker there is only the gate and…

Emiliano Martinez!

Much later, intelligent analysts will analyze this situation in detail, statistically confirming the actions of the Argentine goalkeeper. Martinez took the only correct position and forced the opponent to make one of the split-second decisions – to try to throw, hit or break through. Finally, the young Frenchman panicked and decided not to make the best shot.

But all this happened after. Then at the Lusail arena we saw only one thing: at the decisive moment of the match, the goalkeeper simply psychologically buried and destroyed his counterpart, allowing his team to go into a penalty shootout. As it turns out a few minutes later, triumphant.

What happened next is history. The World Cup, the award for the best goalkeeper of the tournament, the already legendary celebration, the Mbappe-faced puppet in the festive parade, the billboards in Buenos Aires advertising Mega Dibu burgers (Dibu is the player’s nickname). Martinez was, by a large margin, the second most popular player on this side in the league, behind only Leo Messi.

Now it’s hard to imagine this colorful character just three years ago sitting on the bench at London’s Arsenal following a string of loan spells at the likes of Getafe and Reading. Who knows how the story would have ended if it hadn’t been for Neil Mope. It was the French forward (how ironically) from Brighton who injured Bernd Leno and forced Mikel Arteta to urgently prepare for the entry into the field of the Argentine replacement for the Gunners’ main goalkeeper.

In sci-fi films about time travel, they love the visualization of the “butterfly effect”, when an accidentally broken cup of coffee in the past leads to incredible changes in the future. If we lived in such a movie and could watch an alternate history where someone removed that episode of Mope Leno, we could have seen:

– a happy German whose career did not roll down the mountain to the level of the struggle for survival with the “Fulgem”;

– a sad Argentine who still wipes his pants on the Gunners bench or some La Liga outsider;

– a broken Leo Messi, whose eyes will fill with tears even many years after the mention of the fact that he has never won anything with his Argentina national team.

But the story went the way it did. Martinez went in goal, Arsenal finished the season strong, won the FA Cup and forced Aston Villa to shell out almost $20 million for a goalkeeper who no longer wanted to play Fortuna matches and wait for Leno to return .

“He had a clear plan on several fronts: to gain a foothold in the Premier League team’s start, to become one of the best goalkeepers in the world, to take a place in the Argentina national team’s net,” recalls former Villa goalkeeping coach Neil Cutler, with whom Martinez had a very good relationship. report, “all objectives have been achieved”.

The main component of the Argentine’s success is psychology. Behind the mask of a mad psychopath who creates a different game and morally suppresses rivals is a fantastically balanced psychological person who regularly works with a personal psychologist.

It is extremely symbolic that two key successes in a football player’s career are associated with a personal psychoanalyst – the first (FA Cup 2020) and the greatest (World Cup 2022).

“I had an hour and a half session with a therapist the day before the FA Cup Final,” Martinez says of 2020.

Emiliano also needed the help of a mental health specialist in Qatar following a major blow in his opener against Saudi Arabia.

“I needed help. They hit my goal twice and scored two goals. When you have 45 million Argentines behind you, you have to give more,” says the national team goalkeeper.

It seems that a conversation with a psychologist helped, because that unsuccessful match very quickly drowned in the maelstrom of subsequent successes of the team and its goalkeeper, who was distinguished above all by his fantastic confidence.

One could even say that Martinez’s mental toughness was one of the keys to the success of Scaloni’s team.

Geir Jordet, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sports Science, has spent five years analyzing in depth all the penalty kicks at the World Championships over the past 50 years. After the Argentines’ triumph in the World Cup final, he wrote a colossal analysis of Emiliano Martinez’s “mind games” during the penalty shoot-out, explaining all the tricks and tricks of the goalkeeper. Initial reconnaissance, analysis of the referee’s actions, psychological pressure on opposing players and an aggressive reaction to opponents’ failures are all part of Dibu’s well thought out plan. This isn’t even mentioning poor Colo-Muani, who was mentioned at the beginning.

When Lloris arrives, Martinez initiates a handshake. The same with Mbappé.

This is his style. He can be warm and lovable at first, which causes people to let their guard down, making them more vulnerable when he strikes later on. This ambiguity is in itself abusive and part of his strategy. 3/ pic.twitter.com/lof5IVRFOm

— Geir Jordet (@GeirJordet) December 19, 2022

Easier and without screenshots, Cutler confirms this thesis: “Amy demonstrates her best football in those moments when her confidence borders on arrogance. I can’t stand it when she sounds boring.”

Let’s put our hands on our hearts and admit that purely in terms of goalkeeping skills, Martinez is far from being the best goalkeeper in the world. He’s not quite the type of modern goalkeeper with great footwork like Neuer, Alisson or Ederson, but he doesn’t break the stats with line plays and looting dizzying saves like De Gea, Courtois or Oblak. His statistics are not impressive even at the victorious World Cup, according to the results of which he was recognized as the best goalkeeper. At the same time, paradoxically, this is the main feature of him.

Martinez can’t rely on certain unique skills to get him out of sticky situations. He studies the opponents’ game, makes cunning plans and psychologically crushes his counterparts under him, forcing them to play worse and make mistakes, regardless of his own reaction or hand length.

This is an almost ideal type of goalkeeper for such short tournaments, where psychology and the ability to assemble at a crucial moment often come to the fore, rather than “pure” football skills. And it is thanks to these qualities that a completely ordinary goalkeeper, drying his training suit on the Arsenal bench, turned into a continental and world champion with the titles of the best goalkeeper in both tournaments in just a few years.

Well, he deserves a place on this team.

Substitute: Thibault Courtois

Last year’s winner was very close to defending his title. Thibaut has added the Champions League, La Liga and Spanish Super Cup to his collection of trophies, always displaying the highest level of skill. However, as successful as the first half of the year was, the second half of the year was just as blurry, in which the injury adjusted (and the appearance of Lunin at the gate without harm to the results) and the championship of the world that failed for the Belgian team. It makes no sense to deny Thibault’s cosmic level, but today is the time for more heroes.