In what many believe was the greatest FIFA World Cup final ever witnessed, Martínez played like a genius then acted like an idiot. After his superb saves, including one in the final seconds of extra-time and, decisively, in the penalty shoot-out, he was rightly awarded the Golden Glove trophy before wrongly using it in a vulgar fashion.

In the dressing room afterwards, Martínez reportedly called for a minute’s silence for France’s "late" Kylian Mbappé - who had become the second man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final after Geoff Hurst's England exploits in 1966.  

He received further criticism for celebrations in Buenos Aires when he held aloft a doll bearing the Frenchman's face during the team's victory parade.

Meanwhile Martínez - who plays for Premier League team Aston Villa - has been rebuked as well as congratulated by Patrick Vieira, a World Cup winner for France in 1998.

"Some of the pictures I saw from the Argentinian goalkeeper, I think, take away a little bit what Argentina achieved at the World Cup," Vieira said.

"I don’t think they really needed that. 

"You can’t control sometimes people’s emotional decisions. But that was a stupid decision, I think, from Martínez to do that."

Argentina’s brilliance, with the sublime talent of Lionel Messi at the heart of it, will never be forgotten. 

But nor, less happily, will some of their behaviour during the campaign.

The mocking reaction of many of their players as they streamed past a shattered Dutch line up to acclaim victory in the quarter-final penalty shoot-out - with Messi, notably, not getting involved - was captured in a Reuters photo that will be surely a strong contender once awards get handed out for sports pictures of the year.

In fairness, Mbappé didn’t cover himself in glory with his mocking face after Harry Kane had missed the penalty which would have brought England back to 2-2 against France in their quarter final.

For more experienced observers of the quadrennial World Cup drama, and English observers in particular, the Argentinian mix of brilliance and dullness brought back some familiar, ambivalent emotions.

England's toughest match en route to home victory in the home World Cup tournament of 1966 was their quarter-final against an Argentinian side for whom Antonio Rattin played the Messi role of captain and amenuensis, a formidably talented footballer whose overbearing influence on an attritional match ended shortly after the half hour when he was sent off for what was the last of sequence of admonishments of a beleaguered referee.

Hurst’s inspired headed goal in the second half, running into a space by the near post where he knew his West Ham club-mate Martin Peters would deliver the ball from the left - a move that had created many similar goals before and would after - proved enough for England to progress against the ten remaining Argentinian players.

There are two pictures that have come to represent that match. The first is of Hurst’s perfectly-timed glancing header beyond the rooted keeper. The second is of the England manager, Alf Ramsey, intervening to prevent an exchange of shirts between Alberto Gonzalez and his steadfast, super-fast tank of a right back, George Cohen.

Cohen, courageous on the field, courageous off it, died on Friday (December 23) aged 83 -leaving only two men alive of the 11 who made English football history on that rainy, sunny afternoon on July 30 1966 - Hurst, and Bobby Charlton, who was diagnosed in 2020 with dementia.

In his later years, Cohen had campaigned with huge energy to raise awareness about bowel cancer, which had killed England’s World Cup captain Bobby Moore, at the age of 51, and which he himself had endured, with happier results, after it first announced itself when he was just 36.

Cohen, who played his entire career for Fulham, won only one winners' medal - but it was the supreme version. George Best called him the "best full back I ever played against."

But at the end of that fraught July afternoon at Wembley Stadium, he was making a wrong move as far as his loyal international manager was concerned.

In his 2003 autobiography, co-written with the late James Lawton, Cohen recalled: "I can never forget the venom Ramsey put into his voice when, after seeing me about to exchange shirts…he came rushing between us and told me: 'George, you are not changing shirts with that animal.'"

After the match, infamously, Ramsey - a players' manager who never took to, nor wanted to embrace, comfortable diplomacy, got himself into lasting trouble by using that term again in reference to Argentina, although it was not a direct reference.

For the sake of clarity, this is what Ramsey said: "It seemed a pity so much Argentinian talent is wasted. 

"Our best football will come against the right type of opposition - a team who come to play football, and not act as animals."

Recalling a sending-off that took almost 10 minutes to accomplish, and which looked at one point as if it had instigated a walk-off by the entire Argentina team, Cohen wrote: "We were obliged to talk amongst ourselves. One point of agreement was that if we had a vote on who should be sent off the Argentine skipper would have won it by a landslide.

"He was a hellishly awkward customer, but some of his play was simply heavenly. 

"He was in the middle of the defence but he refused to accept any restrictions on his ability to influence every phase of the game, coming out of his line with great authority on the ball. 

"You got the impression he could see everything on the field."

Reflecting on Ramsey’s own reaction to the Argentinian challenge, Cohen wrote how he was aware of the "terrible paradox" of a team that could do such awful and wonderful things.