From Hernan Crespo to Diego Milito to Mauro Icardi, Inter Milan have long had a soft spot for Argentine centre-forwards – and in current No 10 Lautaro Martinez they might just have found the best of the lot.

Quick, strong, brave and effective both in the air and on the deck, Lautaro – he is known by this name rather than ‘Martinez’ – has the potential to be one of the finest strikers of his generation. When football finally emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, fans will look for heroes to lead the sport out of the crisis, and at 22, ‘El Toro’ – ‘The Bull’ in Spanish – is perfectly-placed to realise those dreams.

Thanks to a stellar display when Inter lost 2-1 at Barcelona in the Champions League in October, Lautaro is regarded so highly at the Nou Camp that Luis Suarez – the man he may one day replace as the club’s centre-forward – is already paying him compliments. Similarly, Lautaro’s compatriot Lionel Messi is thought to be a huge fan.

‘Lautaro Martinez has grown up a lot in Italy,’ Suarez told newspaper El Mundo Deportivo. ‘He is a special striker with fantastic movement.

‘We all want to win, and if someone who can help us do that were to come here, he would be welcomed. I’m not worried about the rivalry in attack: competition between talented players is a good thing.’

Lautaro’s release clause is thought to be about £95m – an attractive option prior to the pandemic, but which may prove too expensive if – as expected – austerity grips football in the post-coronavirus world.

Lautaro’s development is all the more impressive when you consider that when he joined Inter he had fewer than three years’ senior football behind him, and no experience of the European game.

Indeed, he was close to dedicating himself to basketball, rather than football, at the age of 15. ‘I love basketball,’ he told Argentine magazine El Grafico in a 2017 interview. ‘At 15, I had to choose and I went with football but if I hadn’t made it, I’d have played basketball. I’d rather watch a basketball game than a football match.’

When Crespo joined Inter in 2002 to replace the great Brazilian, Ronaldo, he had been a regular scorer for Parma and Lazio for six years. Milito had scored 24 goals for Genoa the season before he joined Inter, while Icardi’s star had risen sharply during two years at Sampdoria. When they bought these players, Inter knew what they were getting.

As for Lautaro, many doubted whether he would succeed in Europe at all. Not because of his ability, which was never in question, but because of his attachment to his homeland.

It had been a wrench for Lautaro, then 16, to leave his home city of Bahia Blanca, to the south-west of Buenos Aires, and travel nearly 400 miles to the capital to join Racing Club. He missed his old life so much that he considered abandoning his new one in order to be back with friends and family again.

‘I wanted to go back to Bahia,’ Lautaro recalled. ‘I am very family-orientated and I missed everything, especially my older brother, Alan. We did everything together – we went to school, we went out, we trained together.

‘It was very hard to leave him, especially as he had health problems just when I left, so the combination of everything made me feel bad. Luckily, my family and Racing Club supported me a lot.’

There were similar ‘sliding doors’ moments in Lautaro’s early career. According to his father, Mario, Lautaro could have joined Real Madrid in 2015 but decided to remain in Argentina. Two years later, he came close to joining Atletico Madrid, only to stay put at Racing once again as the club increased his release clause.

Those near-misses allowed Inter to strike in the summer of 2018, concluding a deal worth around £20m – an outstanding piece of business. After a slow start in Milan, Lautaro has rapidly become a key man and this season his partnership with Romelu Lukaku in attack has developed into one of the most potent in the world.

Before the coronavirus crisis halted Italian football on March 9, the pair had 39 goals between them in all competitions and were helping Antonio Conte’s side build a serious title challenge to champions Juventus. ‘We are good friends; we spend time together off the field, too,’ said Lukaku. ‘I am really happy with the way we are going but we can do much better.’

Nevertheless, Lautaro has kept racking up the personal milestones. His strike at Barcelona made him the first Inter player to score at the Nou Camp since Roberto Boninsegna in 1970. Later in the competition, he became only the fourth Inter player to score in four consecutive Champions League matches. Barring injury or dramatic loss of form, he will be leading the line for Argentina in two years’ time as they try to win the World Cup for the first time since 1986.

Nobody can be sure when football will return after its greatest crisis. Yet when it does, expect The Bull to take the game by the horns.

Source:- All Football