Seventeen seconds of added time in extra time remained in the World Cup when Emiliano Martinez thrust out a left boot to defy fatigue and save a fairytale.
That single heroic act on Sunday evening broke France and cemented Lionel Messi’s status as the GOAT.
Without it - there was barely enough time left to kick off never mind equalise - then Messi would undoubtedly have been deprived of the greatest prize in football.
And how that would have changed the narrative of the past few days.
In a week where we’ve exhausted arguments over the greatest player of all time and the greatest World Cup Final of all time here’s another.
The greatest save of all time.
Not the most jaw droppingly outrageous.
But in terms of timing, significance and execution, Martinez’s spread eagle block was, well blockbuster.
For all the beauty of Sunday’s final it was one tired old punt over the top which nearly cost Argentina at the most agonising of times.
Twenty players were taken out the equation as it came down to a battle of wits between the keeper and Randal Kolo Mouani.
The Frenchman couldn’t have asked for a better connection on his strike.
But as his team mates sunk to their knees and watched through their fingers, Martinez threw himself full pelt into the ‘none shall pass’ zone with the wing span of an albatross and legs almost parallel to his arms.
It was incredible technique.
The save was far bigger than the penalty stop that followed as his side secured the World Cup in a shoot out.
And easily more important than Gordon Banks’ scoop over the bar from Pele which pundits south of the border still argue is the best ever - despite it coming in a group game that ended in defeat for England anyway.
It won Argentina the World Cup. And if Messi is now on a pedestal then Martinez is the granite in that plinth.
Rangers boss Michael Beale - who worked with the keeper at Aston Villa - is right when he says Martinez’s story is just beginning.
And the 30-year-old’s tale must be an inspiration to Scotland’s next generation of custodians should our own super stopper Craig Gordon ever decide to call it a day.
Martinez never won his first Argentina cap until June last year at the age of 28 - exactly a decade after his first international call up.
In fact the giant goalkeeper had less than 100 professional appearances to his name by the time he was 28 having spent 10 years at Arsenal and the vast majority of that time out on loan.
Sticking with that theme then the hugely impressive Netherlands goalkeeper Andries Noppert made his international bow in Qatar also at the age of 28 and having spent his entire career hopping around the lower leagues in his homeland and Italy - and spending a year between 2020 and 2021without a club.
Now here he was starring on the biggest stage of all.
If those examples aren’t reassuring for Liam Kelly, Zander Clark and Robby McCrorie, who have shown remarkable levels of patience in the Scotland set-up in recent years, then nothing will be.
Yes it’s worrying that between the three of them not a single second has been played of international football. The friendly in Turkey last month seemed the ideal moment to blood Kelly.
But if Martinez’s story proves anything it’s that goalkeepers are just entering their prime when all around them are beginning to think about one last pay day.
