<\/p>\n
Emiliano Martinez<\/strong><\/p>\n Argentina were made to suffer before landing their first World Cup title in 36 years, having twice squandered a lead, including in extra-time before edging past defending champions France 4-2 on penalties in the final on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a game where we suffered,\u201d said Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, who saved one penalty in the shootout on Sunday after previously saving two more spot kicks in their quarterfinal against Netherlands.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo crappy shots, and they [France] levelled. They give them another penalty, they scored. Thank God later I did my thing, what I dreamed of.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a dramatic final with Argentina first squandering a two-goal lead in regular time and then going back in front in extra-time with Lionel Messi\u2019s second goal before Kylian Mbappe completed his hat-trick to level 3-3 in the 118th minute with a second penalty that forced the shootout.<\/p>\n \u201cThere could not have been a World Cup that I have dreamed of like this. I was calm during the penalties,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n For Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni, it was a nail-biting finish to a turbulent tournament, and he could not hold back his tears after the final whistle.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot believe that we have suffered so much in a perfect game. Unbelievable, but this team responds to everything,\u201d Scaloni said.<\/p>\n \u201cI am proud of the work they did. It is an exciting group. With the blows we received today, with the draws, this makes you emotional. I want to tell people to enjoy, it\u2019s a historic moment for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the third world title for Argentina and the first since the late Diego Maradona won the trophy almost single-handedly in 1986.<\/p>\n For Argentina players and captain Messi, who netted twice in the 120 minutes before also scoring in the shootout, it was the biggest title of their careers.<\/p>\n Messi\u2019s Argentine team had made the final as recently as 2014, but on that occasion they finished second best to Germany.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll never forget it. We had to suffer but we deserved to win,\u201d said Argentina defender Rodrigo De Paul. \u201cWe\u2019ve beaten the last champions, it\u2019s a joy I cannot put into words.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m proud of being born in Argentina, and today we are on top of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emiliano Martinez Argentina were made to suffer before landing their first World Cup title in 36 years, having twice squandered a lead, including in extra-time before edging past defending champions France 4-2 on penalties in the final on Sunday. \u201cIt was a game where we suffered,\u201d said Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, who saved one penalty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1267914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[281,6580],"class_list":["post-1267913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-game","tag-suffered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1267913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1267913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1267913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1267913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}