News

Fútbol fail of the weekend: Roger Martínez denies América's first win of the season with horrible last-minute miss

Roger Martínez has half-assed his last five years playing for América and it's come to the point where it's not even surprising to see him pull moments like this every other week.

Toluca and América faced off in the second matchday of the Liga MX Clausura at the Nemesio Diez stadium Saturday night and gave us a classic match between the two — counter attacks, skills, amazing goalkeeper saves and, most importantly, goals.

The game ended in a fair 2-2 draw, while both teams could've been able to score plenty more, especially América’s Martínez in the last minute of the game. 

Roger Martínez last-minute miss vs. Toluca

After América had tied the game from the spot with a perfectly placed Henry Martín penalty in the 80th minute, the match was cracked open for the closing minutes of the game. Both teams wanted the three points and were working for it.

In the 93rd minute, when an Emilio Lara cross into the box looking for Federico Viñas spilled into the top of the 18, Martínez was given (once again) the opportunity to shut his detractors up with an important goal in a tough stadium to seal the win for his team. He just needed to hit it on target and hope for the best.

This was, of course, too hard for the cafetalero "crack."

$2 million a year salary, ladies and gentlemen.

Roger has become a rotten player

Roger Martinez’s time at América is up (I could have very well written this in 2020 by the way).

The Colombian has been linked to a move outside of Coapa for the past couple of years, with multiple teams interested in South America and in MLS. He’s recently been linked to Boca Juniors and to his former team, Racing Club.

Believe it or not, despite his more than recurrent lack-luster performances for the club, his occasional skillful goals and attractive offensive capabilities have maintained interest from clubs around the continent, on top of the No. 9’s situation with América.

However, even with clubs somehow interested and Las Águilas being more than open to letting the attacker go, the high salary of the “star” player has been what's kept the player put. América is forced to keep a player that no other club is willing to pay such high wages for.

Rogelio, for the last couple of semesters, has chosen to force his way through the completion of a million-dollar contract (that he in no way, shape or form should've been given in the first place) over transferring to a club that he actually wants to play for. In the meantime, América has done nothing about his behavior.

Now, five years after signing the player, América (and Villareal) will be forced to let the Colombian walk on to another club for free when his contract expires in June of this year. Martínez, with no transfer fee attached, will more than likely land himself another juicy and undeserved contract elsewhere.

América has been playing checkers. Roger has been playing chess.

Embed from Getty Images

From now on, América should think twice before killing their club’s wage bills with multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts on players they clearly don’t know enough about. Sounds like common sense now that I think about it.

Toluca vs. América (Jornada 2 Clausura 2023) highlights

Videos you might like