\n<\/p>\n
\t\t\t13<\/i><\/p>\n
Manchester United legend Gary Neville held nothing back as he delivered his verdict on Lisandro Martinez\u2019s performance for Argentina in their dramatic comeback against Egypt.<\/p>\n
Argentina boss Lionel Scaloni started Martinez alongside Tottenham Hotspur man Cuti Romero at the heart of his defence, as the defending World Champions faced Egypt in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Scaloni and his players were seen as clear favourites to advance to the quarter-final but they were stunned when Egypt took the lead inside 15 minutes through Yasser Ibrahim.<\/p>\n
Ibrahim towered over Martinez to head the ball home. Egypt thought they had doubled their lead when Mostafa Ziko applied a superb finish after Martinez was dispossessed at the other end, but the goal was ruled out for a foul on the United star.<\/p>\n
But it didn\u2019t matter too much for the African nation as Ziko eventually got on the scoresheet shortly after, finishing off a superb counter-attacking move. Martinez, yet again, was right in the middle of it all.<\/p>\n
Argentina looked down and out until Romero rose to meet a sensational Messi delivery and gave them hope.<\/p>\n
The eight-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner then conjured a moment of brilliance in the 83rd minute, lashing a half-volley into the net after Egypt failed to deal with the danger.<\/p>\n
Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez had the final say. He headed in a ball from Lautaro Martinez in stoppage time to break the hearts of all Egyptians and send Argentina through to the next round.<\/p>\n
While Martinez was partly culpable for the goals that Argentina conceded, he also posted some impressive numbers. The 28-year-old managed a 94% pass accuracy, with 11 of his passes going into the final third.<\/p>\n
He also won seven of his ground duels and emerged victorious in all four tackles he attempted.<\/p>\n
Speaking on ITV<\/em>Neville blasted Martinez for seemingly switching off defensively, while he also acknowledged what he offers Argentina, especially in attack.<\/p>\n Dissecting the opening goal, Neville remarked, \u201cI\u2019m surprised because he\u2019s usually the best actually. Because of his size, he\u2019s very aware of being body to body and touch tight.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA great delivery is put into the back post, but you just watch him (Martinez) here\u2026 he is close, he\u2019s sort of wrestling with Ibrahim and then all of a sudden he just steps off him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think he might just be thinking about stepping up for offside with the rest in line. He\u2019s quite tight. He\u2019s tight, he\u2019s tight and that\u2019s what he does, he\u2019s very good at it, and then he just switches off for a split-second. Maybe he thinks they\u2019re just going to push up, but it\u2019s a great delivery, a great header.\u201d<\/p>\n Neville added after the full-time whistle, \u201cYou watch (Cristian) Romero and (Lisandro) Martinez, and they\u2019re the best \u2018worst centre-halves\u2019 in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou watch them, they give goals away constantly. But they don\u2019t care about giving goals away because they\u2019ll score goals at the other end. They have massive personalities and they keep going. Look, at that point in the game, you think Argentina are hanging on for dear life. They\u2019re fighting for their lives and Romero is part of that comeback, you know what I mean? Why is he there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou always ask the questions: \u2018why is Martinez scoring in the last game? Why is Romero scoring there?\u2019 Because they don\u2019t give in and they fight, and they fight, and they fight.\u201d<\/p>\n Roy Keane was also complimentary of Romero\u2019s movement for his important goal.<\/p>\n Featured image by Michael Steele\/Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n The Peoples Person has been one of the world\u2019s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 13 Manchester United legend Gary Neville held nothing back as he delivered his verdict on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Neville\u2019s verdict<\/h3>\n