Aston Villa’s Emi Martinez played through grim injury to win Europa League | Football | Sport

Emi Martinez has revealed he suffered a broken finger during the warm-up ahead of Aston Villa‘s Europa League final victory over SC Freiburg. The shot-stopper required attention from Villa’s medical staff before kick-off, yet still took his place between the posts and kept a clean sheet in the commanding 3–0 triumph.

Youri Tielemans broke the deadlock for Villa late in the first half, before Emi Buendia doubled the advantage prior to the interval. Morgan Rogers then netted a third before the hour mark, as Villa cruised to their first European trophy in 44 years. Speaking after the final whistle, Martinez shed light on why he had been receiving treatment before the match got under way and was so emotional after the full-time whistle.

“What we achieved tonight was beautiful. I feel proud and the feeling I keep growing match after match,” the goalkeeper told ESPN. “Today I broke my finger during warmups, but I didn’t see it as a bad thing.

“I’ve never broken a finger before and every time I tried to catch the ball, the finger would just slip away in the other direction. “But, these are just things you have to go through.

“The truth is that the fans and the club are like family to me. Every time I step out to defend the Aston Villa goal, I do so with immense pride.

“Today, I tried to pour in all my experience, and all those training sessions that no one ever sees and finally bore fruit today.”

Triumphant Villa manager Unai Emery said: “Next year we will play in Champions League and this is the challenge. The best teams in the world are there and it will challenge us a lot.

“The Premier League is the most difficult league in the world. To be fighting top seven, top five, top four is something very difficult. Hopefully we can be close with teams like City and Arsenal.

“It’s a huge challenge we have in Premier League. Why? In the beginning we are not contenders for top seven. There are top seven teams.

“Top six, and Newcastle is the seventh. And we are trying to get there. To try to be consistent there. We are achieving it.”