How Neal Maupay won Argentina the World Cup
June 20th 2020. Brighton & Hove Albion returned to action for the first time in three months after the Premier League season had been paused for Covid-19. Little did anyone know at the time that Neal Maupay was about to set in motion a chain of events culminating in Argentina winning the World Cup and Lionel Messi cementing his legacy as the greatest player of all time.
40 minutes had elapsed at an empty Amex Stadium when Maupay challenged Gunners goalkeeper Bernd Leno to a high, bouncing ball on the edge of the area.
The two collided. Leno landed awkwardly, injuring his knee. After receiving treatment, Leno was stretchered off whilst delivering an angry finger point of doom at Maupay.
It was hard to see what Leno was complaining about. Maupay might well be La Petite Shithouse Française, but on this occasion it was an honest, innocuous challenge he had every right to go for.
Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand in their roles as pundits both agreed. So too did *checks notes* Gunners manager Mikel Arteta.
Not that Leno or Arsenal fans saw it the same way. They wanted Maupay sent off, banned for life or locked up in a cell with Peter Sutcliffe for this heinous crime of challenging for a loose ball.
That anger at Maupay had deepened into a dark hatred when he went onto pop up with a 05th minute winner as it finished Brighton 2-1 Arsenal.
To complete a wonderful afternoon of work for Monsieur Maupay, he then sparked a mass brawl at the full time whistle.
Matteo Guendouzi has such a meltdown that he throttled Maupay, behaviour which so appalled Mikel Arteta that the French defender never played for the Gunners again.
Maupay then delivered a quite wonderful post-match interview in which he apologised to Leno. He followed that up by telling Arsenal that they needed to learn some humility, revealing that Guendouzi had spent most of the game mocking Albion players for earning less money than him and playing for a club who would never win a trophy.
Those Arsenal fans screaming blue murder feared that Leno would be out for months with a serious knee injury. It turned out however that he had suffered only moderate ligament damage and was back in training within six weeks.
When Leno departed the action at the Amex, it gave the Gunners’ backup goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez a chance to stake his claim for a first team spot.
Martinez had been with Arsenal since 2011 but his opportunities had been restricted to a handful of appearances in the 2014-15 season and several League Cup run outs.
Most of his football had been played on a loan odyssey around the Football League. Oxford, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Wolves and Reading had all borrowed him from the Gunners, as well as Spanish outfit Getafe.
Martinez went onto impress in Arsenal’s remaining 12 matches of the 2019-20 season, including the FA Cup final where the Gunners beat Chelsea 2-1 to win the trophy for a record-breaking 14th time.
The genie was out of the Martinez bottle now. He had proven himself too good to sit on the bench at the Emirates Stadium when Leno returned for the start of the 2020-21 campaign and so he moved to Aston Villa for a fee of £17 million.
At the age of 28, Martinez was a top flight number one for the first time in his career. Over the next nine months, he proved himself one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League to force his way into the Argentina squad.
Martinez made his international bow against Chile in a World Cup qualifier in June 2021. He did enough to convince Lionel Scaloni to make him number one for the Copa America the following month, where Martinez kept four clean sheets, conceded just two goals and saved three penalties in the semi-final shootout against Colombia.
That saw Martinez win the Golden Glove award and Argentina the tournament. It was La Albiceleste’s first trophy since 1993 but arguably more importantly, it meant Messi had finally won something at international level.
Argentina of course maintained that form over the following 18 months. Since the start of their successful Copa America campaign, they have lost only to Saudi Arabia in that shock World Cup opening game defeat in Qatar.
Now would be a good time to mention that was the one game which Alexis Mac Allister did not start at the World Cup, right?
Martinez saved two penalties as Argentina squeezed past the Netherlands in the quarter finals. In the final, he denied France’s Randal Kolo Muani with an outstanding one-on-one save in the final seconds of extra time to ensure it finished 3-3 and penalties were again required.
Having proven himself as a goalkeeping master when it comes to shootouts, Martinez kept out Kingsley Coman’s effort before winning the mind games against Aurelian Tchouameni who fired wide.
Argentina scored all four of their penalties and for the first time since 1986, were World Cup winners. The debate over who is the greatest player of all time swung decisively in favour of Messi as the little maestro emulated the great Diego Maradona in leading La Albiceleste to World Cup glory.
Without Martinez, none of that happens. And without Maupay, Martinez doesn’t happen. Which means without Maupay, Argentina do not win the World Cup.
Turns out that Mac Allister was not the only Brighton player to play a huge role in Messi and La Albiceleste’s success. It was Neal Maupay who also helped win the World Cup for Argentina.
