MARTINEZ’S FAMILY KEPT APART FOR CRYING GAME
EMILIANO MARTINEZ has revealed that his family could not even be together to watch the FA Cup Final.
His native Argentina is still in a strict lockdown and his brother could not be in the same house as his parents to watch the 27-year-old enjoy the proudest moment of his career.
The Arsenal keeper broke down in tears of joy after the game as he dedicated the win to his family back in his home country – but it was reward for not giving up.
Martinez said: “I never wanted to go back to Argentina with empty hands.
“After a decade, to win the FA Cup with Arsenal, playing a key role in the game, I could not be prouder.
“My family are in lockdown now. My brother watched it in a different house to my parents. It is tough for them as they wanted to be here and it is tough for me because it has been a long time.
“I wanted to see them here and give them a hug after a long, long fight. “I always do it for them. My family supported me all the way, I have a family here in Europe and I do it for them – I never do it for myself. I was just crying for the first five, 10 minutes after the game.
“Now I am relaxed I might get a replica to put in the cabinet at home. I came from a long way to get here.”
Martinez also revealed how a players’ meeting after Arsenal lost at Brighton in their second game back after lockdown changed the course of their season.
That Seagulls defeat was a huge blow to their hopes of reaching the Champions League places, but they have salvaged the season with the FA Cup.
Martinez added: “You can see that we changed. After the restart, when we lost against Brighton, we sat down ourselves and thought, ‘We need to change – we need to trust the manager, we need to trust ourselves’.
“I was saying to the players before kick off: trust yourselves, trust everyone.
“We have got a clever manager, he will know what to do in the future. I just wanted to win the FA Cup for the fans.
“Obviously, we had a bad season in terms of playing style, we changed the manager twice which has not happened at Arsenal for a long period.”