Alexis Mac Allister says Aston Villa have a player who plays football like he’s a child

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The defining moment of Alexis Mac Allister’s career was undoubtedly the World Cup win in 2022.

The midfielder was still a Brighton player at that point, but he was one of the stars of the tournament in Qatar as Argentina became world champions.

Alexis Mac Allister achieved his dream that winter, but it very nearly didn’t go Argentina’s way in the final.

Indeed, at 3-3 in the final minute, Randall Kolo Muani had a golden chance to win the game for France, but Emi Martinez made one of the saves of the century to keep the striker out.

Writing in The Player’s Tribune, Mac Allister has been discussing that moment, that save and Martinez’s personality.

Emi Martinez plays football like a child

Mac Allister spoke about Martinez and how he helped Argentina win the World Cup.

The midfielder says that the goalkeeper is crazy, claiming that he plays football with the spirit of a child in that he’s always in the moment.

Martinez has been linked to Manchester United this summer, so he could soon turn into one of Mac Allister’s biggest rivals.

“Thank God, we have El Dibu (Martinez), the craziest one of them all. I always say that he has the spirit of a child playing football. He does things that only a kid would think of doing, because he plays in the moment, you know?” Mac Allister wrote.

“The only way that I can describe that save is to remember what it was like when you were a little kid, jumping on the bed, pretending to be Buffon or Casillas or El Pato Abbondanzieri. You know what I mean? Were me and my brothers the only ones who did that? Whenever our mom would go out to the grocery store, we would sneak into her room, because she had the biggest bed in the house. That was our pitch, for the hour. One brother would throw the ball, and the other brother would jump around on the mattress, pretending to be El Pato making crazy diving saves.”

Emi Martinez’s stats for Argentina

Martinez has been a late bloomer in his career, but despite not debuting for Argentina until 2021, he’s now arguably his country’s best goalkeeper of all-time.

His World Cup heroics will live forever in the minds of his countrymen, while he repeated the trick at the Copa America last summer too.

His stats for Argentina tell the entire story, the Aston Villa ace is almost unbeatable.

Martinez will go down as one of his country’s all-time greats, and as Mac Allister says, his remarkable mentality and ability to play in the moment makes him an incredible player.

Martinez may play football with the spirit of a child, but, as a goalkeeper, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.