Emiliano Martínez goes into Monday’s match against Austria with Argentina, and with it a chance to move another step toward Sergio Romero’s national-team clean-sheet record. The goalkeeper has 42 shutouts in 60 appearances for the Selección Argentina, leaving him five short of the mark Romero set across 96 matches.
The number matters because Martínez has reached that total fast, and because Argentina still has a job to finish in Group J of the Mundial 2026. A win against Austria would push Lionel Scaloni’s side closer to the round of 16, so the record chase sits inside a bigger test: keep the run going, keep the goals out, keep the tournament moving.
Argentina already opened with a 3-0 win over Argelia, which gives the team a useful base but not a finished story. Martínez has become an increasingly important part of this cycle under Scaloni, and his consistency has made the clean-sheet race feel less like a curiosity than a genuine milestone within reach. Juventus is also being mentioned as a club interested in signing him, another sign that his profile keeps rising even as the national team focus stays on the World Cup.
The friction is obvious. Martínez can chase a record only if Argentina keeps winning, and the next result matters more to the bracket than the register of clean sheets. If he blanks Austria, he stays within one shutout of tying Romero; if he does it again after that, the record stops being a long-standing number and starts looking temporary.
For now, the question is not whether Martínez belongs in the conversation. It is whether he leaves Monday still one match, and one clean sheet, from matching the most durable goalkeeping mark in Argentina’s history.
