IT'S been a tough week for Internazionale. The progress made under new manager Antonio Conte, which saw them undefeated through their first seven games of the season, was put in stark perspective thanks to defeats to Barcelona and Juventus, two sides who represent the established elite the Nerazzurri aspires to rejoin.
Inter can take heart, though, not only from the fact they were thoroughly competitive in both 2-1 defeats, but that Lautaro Martinez, the 22-year-old Argentinian striker now in his second season with the club, proved himself ready for the highest stage.
In the Champions League group-stage meeting at the Camp Nou on Wednesday night, Martinez collected Alexis Sanchez’s slipped pass and held off the challenge of Clement Lenglet to confidently slide the ball beyond Marc-Andre ter Stegen to give Inter a second-minute lead over the champions of Spain.
Then when the two sides expected to contest this season’s Scudetto met at the San Siro on Sunday, it was Martinez who stepped up to firmly dispatch an 18th-minute penalty, drawing Inter level with Juventus in Italy’s highest-stakes game of the campaign thus far.
Absolutely no doubt in my mind that Lautaro Martínez is going to be one of the best strikers in football soon. What a player.
— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) October 2, 2019
“I know there will be a lot of pressure on my shoulders but it’s a responsibility I want to take upon myself,” Martinez ESPN in the summer of 2018, following his €22.7m move from Racing in Argentina. “I’ll train in the best possible way to be a key player this season.”
It has taken him a year to achieve it, but there is no question now that Martinez is key to Inter’s hopes of success under Conte this season. In his maiden campaign with the club, he made just 23 Serie A starts, returning a modest six goals and two assists across 27 total appearances as he acclimatised to the Italian top flight.
There were flashes of the magic that saw him score 27 goals in his two full seasons in the Racing first team and convinced Inter to part with such a princely sum, and there were sustained spells of form which brought him to the brink of truly establishing himself as a central figure for the Nerazzurri. But there was, understandably given his relative inexperience and Inter’s own turmoil, a lack of consistency.
With seven starts, three goals and an assist to his name already this term, there is no mistaking the fact Conte values Martinez, and the player is repaying his manager’s faith with a dependable output and an invaluable knack of producing his best form in the biggest games.
"I feel good with him, he demands hard work from us," Martinez said recently of working under Conte. "He is serious and intense in training, and with respect to last year, he has brought the team a different mentality."
Martinez is also making strides at international level, where the 22-year-old’s eight goals – including a hat-trick against Mexico in his most recent cap – from nine appearances in 2019 make him Argentina’s form player ahead of this week’s friendly against Germany; a remarkable feat considering the quality of attacking talent La Albiceleste are able to call upon.
Lautaro Martínez: "I always said that my dream is to play on the same team that Messi plays on".
— Barcelona Worldwide (@BarcaWorldwide) October 4, 2019
Genuinely two-footed, unselfish and with the off-the-cuff individual skill to produce defence-splitting moments of inspiration, Martinez has all the tools to become one of Serie A’s most dangerous attackers if he continues to perform at his current level; a fact made all the more impressive given he started his footballing life as a defender, and was 15 before he began to play as a forward.
But his stellar displays could see him prised away from Italy, with Barcelona linked with a big-money move for the Inter star as a long-term successor to Luis Suarez at the point of the Camp Nou attack.
Stylistically, such a move, were it ever to materialise, would make perfect sense. With his workrate, athleticism and creativity, Martinez could be the ideal mobile, false 9-type centre-forward Barca need to bring the best out of the likes of Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele in the wide positions, and his penchant for big-game goals would endear him to the Catalan faithful.
For now, though, Martinez’s focus is trained firmly in black and blue matters. “Playing with him [Messi] at Barcelona? “I can do that when I am representing Argentina,” he told Sky Italia in response to the rumours. “As far as club football is concerned, I am only thinking about Inter.”
“I have only Inter in my mind I want to achieve many more goals with the club.”
This season, that means being a catalyst for Inter’s first genuine title challenge since they claimed the Treble under Jose Mourinho in 2010.
