Emiliano Martinez walked onto the field at the Meadowlands with a broken finger on his right hand. He walked off it with a World Cup record nobody saw coming.
The Argentina goalkeeper faced what looked like an unstoppable Spain attack Sunday in the 2026 World Cup final. Spain threw everything at him. Shots from distance. Free kicks from Lamine Yamal. Crosses that turned into headers. Martinez answered every single one of them until the final whistle blew in extra time.
By then he had made 10 saves. That’s the most ever in a World Cup final. The old record was eight, and Martinez tied that somewhere in the second half before breaking it during a Spain free kick that Yamal placed perfectly. Martinez still got there. He denied Yamal, denied Spain’s relentless pressure, and kept Argentina in a game where their offense could barely get anything going.
How a broken finger became part of the story
The injury happened before the match. Martinez didn’t say much about it until after. Playing through something like that in a regular season game is one thing. Doing it in a World Cup final is something else entirely.
He caught and deflected shot after shot. The Spain attack just kept coming, wave after wave, and Martinez kept sending them back. His teammates noticed. The crowd noticed. By the time he made his eighth save, the buzz had already started spreading online. By the 10th, people were just shaking their heads.
Argentina’s offense struggled badly. Lionel Messi was on the field but couldn’t find the space he usually carves out. The team also lost a player to a red card after a collision that forced Enzo Fernandez into the game. Lisandro Martinez left with an injury of his own. Everything seemed to be falling apart for the defending champions.
Except Martinez refused to let the goal stand.
A scare in extra time
Late in extra time, Martinez collided with multiple players and grabbed his right hand again. The same hand with the broken finger. For a moment Argentina fans held their breath. He stayed in. He kept playing. He kept making saves.
The Argentina team came into this tournament trying to repeat what they did in 2022. They survived a late England push to reach the final. Now they’re locked in a brutal battle with Spain, deadlocked after regulation and extra time, with Martinez’s record already secure no matter what happens next.
But make no mistake. The only reason Argentina was still alive long enough to need extra time was because their goalkeeper played through a broken finger and stopped 10 shots nobody thought he could reach.
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