Emiliano Martinez leaves Argentina crowd in stitches as Louis van Gaal tackles

Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez was apparently more pleased with his opponents' downfall than his country's World Cup triumph. After mockingly targeting Kylian Mbappe after beating France in Sunday's final in Qatar, Martinez resumed hostilities with Louis van Gaal.

The Argentine heroes celebrated the country's third World Cup victory on home soil this week, welcomed by millions of compatriots in Buenos Aires. And after making headlines as Albiceleste's penalty saver, Martinez remained in the headlines after the tournament.

The Aston Villa striker has been slammed for his brutal mockery of France and Mbappe after Argentina's success at the Lusail stadium. In the dressing room, he asked for a minute's silence for Mbappe before lifting a toy baby with the France striker's face glued to it during the trophy parade earlier this week.

But it wasn't the first time he reveled in the defeat of his opponents, shouting a series of abusive comments towards Van Gaal after Argentina eliminated the Netherlands on penalties in the quarter of final. Martinez said, "I fucked you twice," in reference to saving kicks from Virgil van Dijk and Steven Berghuis.

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And in front of Argentina fans this week, Martinez reignited his feud with the outgoing Dutch boss. The controversial 30-year-old says Van Gaal's claims that his team would progress if the match went to a penalty shootout prompted him to deny them a place in the last four.

He said: "I still remember before the match, the national coach of the Netherlands criticized our captain Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria. He said that the Netherlands were going to win at the level of penalty shootout. However, the truth was different."

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Martinez also admitted that he saved Van Gaal's quotes on his phone to use as motivation for his penalty shootout exploits and to show his goalkeeping coach and psychologist. "They shouted a lot of nonsense before the game," Martinez proclaimed.

"I learned that in football you have to talk on the pitch. I got a lot of energy from their statements before the game. It made me stronger, and I told them that too "I took a screenshot of the statements on my phone. I showed it to the goalkeeping coach and my psychologist. I said it worked like dynamite. I wanted to shut them up. "

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