He was born Lautaro Javier Martinez on 22nd August, 1997 in Bahia Blanca in Argentina. Lautaro Martinez is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a striker for Italian giants, Inter Milan and the Argentine national team, La Albiceleste.
Lautaro began his football career when he joined his hometown side Liniers de Bahia Blanca. At age 14, he was already buying videos of his matches with Liniers from a local broadcaster to analyze his mistakes and correct them. At 15, he marked his professional debut for Liniers U-17 with a goal in 2013 and he went on to score 13 goals in the U-17 league that year. His stunning performances caught the attention of the then Interim manager of Racing Club, Fabio Radaelli who signed him in January 2014 without undergoing trials like the other boys did. Not long after joining the club, he started suffering from home sicknesses and wanted to return to his hometown but Braian Mansilla, his teammate found a way to convince him to stay. He went on to make 64 appearances and netted 53 goals for the club’s reserve side.
In 2015, he rejected a deal to join Real Madrid which his father later explained that he was not ready for a move away from Racing. On November 1, 2015, he made his league debut after coming on as a second half substitute for club legend, Diego Milito in a 3-0 win over Crucero del Norte. He went on to replace the veteran striker in the team. An injury to regular starting striker, Lisandro Lopez granted the ticket to Lautaro to assume a more senior role for the 2016-17 season where he found the back of the net 9 times in 23 league appearances. He went on to represent his country at the 2017 South American U-20 Championship and 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He underwent a medical in December 2017 with Atletico Madrid with reports following that the Spanish side had signed him but Racing announced later that he had renewed his contract with a release clause inserted.
On 27th February 2018, Lautaro Martinez bagged his second hat-trick in a month when he scored three goals on his Copa Libertadores debut against Brazilian side, Cruzeiro thereby cementing a 4-2 victory for his team. He looked surprisingly frustrared as he walked off the pitch for an interview even though thousands of fans were chanting his name. Lautaro said in the interview that “The truth is that, I didn’t like the game I played. Apart from the three goals, I lost some easy balls that I could have done better with, so I need to keep improving. I go home very upset tonight, but still happy because the team won its opening match.” The definitely isn’t the kind of interview you would expect from a 20 year old looking to rise in his career. Lautaro was on an extremely different technical and above all, mental level compared to the other local teenagers who came on the scene in recent years. He left Racing Club in 2018 scoring 27 goals in 60 appearances.
Then Argentina head coach, Jorge Sampaoli was several times spotted at the El Cilindro Stadium because of Lautaro Martinez. Sampaoli has described and likened Lautaro’s talent to that of Argentina legend, Gabriel Batistuta. He received a call-up to the senior national team in March 2018 for two friendlies against Italy and Spain where he made his first appearance against the latter on 27th March, 2018. He was dropped in the final selection for the 2018 FIFA World Cup squad as Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain was picked to travel to Russia ahead of him. In May 2019, Lautaro Martinez was named in Lionel Scaloni’s final 23-man squad that represented Argentina at the 2019 Copa America tournament in Brazil. He scored 2 goals in his side’s run to 3rd place finish and was named man of the match in the quarter final fixture against Venezuela. He now has 9 national team goals to his name after making 17 appearances.
Lautaro Martinez joined Italian side, Inter Milan in the summer of 2018 for a fee in the region of €23m, signing a five-year contract. He made his debut in a 1-0 Serie A defeat to Sassuolo on August 19 the same year. Due to Mauro Icardi’s absence for personal reasons in 2019, Lautaro had the benefit to start games before Icardi finally departed on a loan deal to PSG in the summer and has made that position his own. He has formed a solid partnership with Belgium striker, Romelu Lukaku since the beginning of the 2019-20 season.
Upon arrival at the Milan Malpensa airport to complete his move to Inter, he was asked which number he preferred and he chose the number 10. Inter’s representatives tried to dissuade him with the claim that it comes with extra pressure but he insisted. He rather went on to live up to the hype. He refused to take any Italian classes when he arrived but he has managed to learn the language on his own and already sounds a bit fluent in interviews. Lautaro in himself is not only an impressive field performer but also possesses an intellectual capacity much higher than an average player.
Lautaro Martinez has been heavily linked with a move to Barcelona this summer and it is not surprising that the Catalan giants want him. He has a style that will perfectly fit in the system at Camp Nou but as to whether he will flourish when he moves there is a question only time can answer. Since the signing of Luiz Suarez and Ivan Rakitic in 2014, it is difficult to name a player who came to Barcelona and lived up to or even above expectation. Barcelona is known for promoting and uplifting the profile of players as in the case of Neymar, Jordi Alba, Sergi Roberto, Luiz Suarez, and Ivan Rakitic among others. But in recent years, players signed by Barcelona are only tagged as flops because they have not been able to live up to the billing. Among such are Malcom, Arda Turan, Yerry Mina, including big money arrivals, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele.
Lautaro Javier Martinez, the boy from Bahia Blanca, a city located 636 kilometers from Buenos Aires, right where the Patagonia region begins and basketball reigns over football, after announcing his name at the El Cilindro Stadium, came to Europe and has already proved himself in two seasons. His performance is a statement that wherever he finds himself this summer, he will be looking to achieve bigger and greater feet.
Sporty Ben 