Lisandro Martinez is showing Manchester United he’s back to his best during Copa America for Argentina, here’s how he performed most recently.
After a worryingly injury-focused campaign for Manchester United, many hoped that the Copa America this summer would be where Lisandro Martinez returned to his best.
This is exactly what happened as he has started every game and also remained injury-free thus far in the tournament – touch wood.
Now, Argentina are into the semi-finals of the tournament after beating Ecuador on penalties on Thursday night.
Here is how the Argentine media reacted to the result and more importantly Martinez’s performance, a display which impressed fans.
How did the Argentine media react to Martinez’s display?
Martinez was once more among Argentina’s best performers and now the Argentine media have had their say on how he played during the quarter-final win.
Among the outlets to review Martinez was Ole, who wrote: “What a first goal for the National Team! He detected that Mac Allister was going to comb it at the far post and arrived with a great header. At first, Enner Valencia had a hard time scoring, but he adjusted and finished solidly.”
Pagina 12 also enjoyed the outing from Martinez, writing: “The defender turned his first goal into the selected one to give the team the advantage. At the time of defending, he did it with conviction, and managed to stop Sarmiento or Páez, every time any of them appeared on his radar.”
Next, it was La Voz who scored Martinez a 7/10 before adding: “He solves everything with his quality and its duo with ‘El Cuti’ is already a fixed one. He scored a super important goal: 1-0.”
Aire Digital awarded Martinez an 8/10 match rating before reviewing him: “Amen to his solid work in the [defence] – as usual -, where he prevailed in the duel with two good strikers such as Preciado and Valencia.”
Finally, El Sol praised Martinez, giving him a 7/10 and raving: “Great game from the ‘Butcher’, scoring [Argentina’s] only goal, but also being firm in the defence. He more than earned the title.”
So the general consensus seems to be that even aside from the goal, Martinez had an incredible game defensively. Let’s take a look at how good he was.
How Lisandro Martinez performed for Argentina v Ecuador
Martinez looks back to his sparking best at long last and against Ecuador, he showed his passing quality as he completed 45 passes out of 45 attempts, which perfectly complimented his first goal for Argentina.
Defensively, Martinez was also impressive;
- 2 clearances
- 1 interception
- 5 defensive actions
- 1 recovery
- 3 duels won
This is the kind of performance that United fans have been hoping to see upon his return to full fitness and hopefully, this is the tournament which sees him have a 24/25 season which resembles his 22/23 season.
With a new partner of the quality of Matthijs de Ligt, Martinez will no doubt be excited to get back into life at Old Trafford next month.
