Aston Villa may have been held to a goalless draw with Serie A giants Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday evening, but Emiliano Martinez had the last laugh – as he always does
Emiliano Martinez was back to his old ways on Wednesday evening when he was spotted mocking Juventus goalkeeper, Michele Di Gregorio.
The Villains were held to a 0-0 draw on home turf as they welcomed the titans of Serie A in the Champions League, despite the game being filled to the brim with chances. The biggest talking point, however, came when Morgan Rogers was controversially denied a late winner in front of the Holte End, when Diego Carlos was found to have fouled Di Gregorio.
The 31-year-old Brazilian centre-half was penalised for jumping up with the Italian goalkeeper as he tried to claim Youri Tielemans’ free-kick delivery, with Di Gregorio dropping the ball as a result. Rogers then thought he had scored the winner by placing the ball into an empty net, only for the goal to be ruled out for foul play.
And after a fantastic game of his own, which allowed Villa to become the first team to keep clean sheets in their first three Champions League home games since Chelsea in 1999, Martinez was back to his old ways of cheekily taunting. After the full-time whistle, the Argentinian appeared to be mocking Di Gregorio by laughing and holding his side to imitate the keeper as he fell to the floor from his earlier contact with Carlos.
It’s not the first time that Martinez has been incredibly animated with regards to football either. The 32-year-old made headlines for his penalty shootout celebrations during Argentina’s 2022 World Cup final win, in which he thrusted the tournament’s Golden Glove award towards his groin. Meanwhile, the keeper was seen taunting Lille fans back in April after saving two penalties in a tense Europa Conference League shootout.
Ollie Watkins also hit out at the controversial decision to chalk-off Rogers’ goal, citing how goalkeepers are protected over other players. Speaking on TNT Sports, he said: “I think it was soft. Maybe in the Premier League, it’s a goal. But in Europe, the goalkeepers are protected a lot.
“It’s one of them. I thought we scored. But to be fair, this game had a 0-0 written all over it. It’s a positive result. The fans want to see lots of goals and we do ourselves. But the most important thing was we didn’t lose tonight. Juventus are a massive team and they played well. But we kept them out and now we move on to the weekend.”
Martinez only had to work once in the first half, saving an effort from Francisco Conceicao. He was then called into action in the second half when Teun Koopmeiners pinged a ball to the back post and Conceicao headed it goalwards from point-blank range.
The keeper somehow managed to claw the ball off the goal line to keep the score at 0-0. Villa have now been able to keep clean sheets from each of their three home matches with Italian teams following their draw with Juventus – beating Bologna and Inter prior.
Their only loss in the 2024/25 Champions League came in the form of a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge earlier this month, Hans Vanaken slotting home a penalty on the 52nd minute during the fixture. For their efforts, Villa currently sit in ninth-place with three wins, one draw and one loss – albeit, the table is that tight after five games that they are only one win behind second-place Inter.
Villa travel to the Red Bull Arena to face a struggling RB Leipzig come December 10, with hopes of climbing up the table – the German side losing all five of their Champions League games thus far. Leipzig were beaten 2-1 by Atletico in their opening game of the tournament, before suffering a 3-2 defeat to a ten-man Juventus in their next fixture.
A 1-0 defeat against Liverpool followed, before Celtic then put them to the sword 3-1. Marco Rose also failed to take anything away from the club’s most-recent meeting with Inter on Tuesday, losing 1-0 after Castello Lukeba put the ball into the back of his own net.
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