Cristian Romero loves being aggressive with opposition strikers but it was the English media he lashed out at following Argentina’s dramatic World Cup semi-final victory.Before the game, former England and Manchester United defender turned television pundit Gary Neville described Romero and Lisandro Martinez as the “best, worst centre-half pairing in the world” and added that “at times they can be unbelievable but the next, it’s the sublime to the ridiculous.”“They seem to give a goal away between them every single game,” Neville said about the pair on The Overlap earlier this week. “But you watch them (for Argentina), they are scoring goals, heading the ball, they’re literally everywhere — it’s incredible.”Romero rarely speaks to the media but is unafraid to be brutally honest when he does. Since he joined Tottenham Hotspur from Atalanta in 2021, initially on loan before the deal became permanent for £43million ($57.8m) a year later, Romero has occasionally criticised the club’s senior figures in public, so taking down Neville was never going to be an issue.“The only thing that I hope for is that when I retire, I am not that stupid,” Romero replied when asked about Neville’s remark by DSports after beating England. “Hopefully, I won’t criticise a player or anyone.“Because at the end of the day, we are doing our best for our national team. Sometimes it goes right for us, sometimes badly, but we are just happy to be in a World Cup final again. I think we are making history, for us it is something really huge, and we feel the significance of this shirt like no one else.”Romero and Martinez have stirred up a lot of headlines during their time in England with Spurs and Manchester United, respectively, but now they are one step away from becoming back-to-back Copa America and World Cup winners for Argentina.The origins of Romero and Martinez’s partnership can be traced back to a friendly in Buenos Aires a decade ago. They played with each other for the first time as Argentina Under-19s beat their Japanese counterparts. Lautaro Martinez, who scored the stoppage-time winner against England, was on the scoresheet that day. At the beginning of 2017, they made a few appearances together at the Under-20 South American Championship in Ecuador.Martinez and Romero playing in a pre-World Cup friendly (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)Martinez made his debut for the senior side in a friendly against Venezuela in March 2019. However, they both made their first competitive appearance in June 2021. Romero started in a 1-1 draw with Chile, and Martinez joined him in defence for the second half of a World Cup qualifier. The partnership has been broken up a few times since then, but that is mainly because of Martinez’s struggles with injury. He only started two of their games at the last World Cup as head coach Lionel Scaloni preferred to partner Romero with former Manchester City defender Nicolas Otamendi.One source close to Martinez — who, like all of those spoken to for this article, unless otherwise noted, wished to remain anonymous as they were not authorised to speak publicly — believes he has a special connection with Romero because they are the same age (28) and have played together for such a long time. It has given them a unique and intricate understanding of each other’s game. They are both comfortable on the ball under pressure and capable of playing line-breaking passes. They take it in turns to push up high on opposition forwards. Sources say they almost don’t need to speak; they know each other so well that a glance can be enough.