Even if he scores less, the captain remains the leader of the group: the whole club is with him
For a few weeks the 8 million inhabitants of Riyadh have been going up and down in a brand new subway, a modern revolution in the desert: it cost just 22.5 billion dollars, a succulent contract even for many Italian companies. It is used to approach the Al-Awwal stadium where two nights ago Inter feasted against Atalanta, while the captain sitting at the head of the table returned to locking himself into a very strange fast: Lautaro Martinez wasted, quite a lot, without this changing the his centrality in Inter is a millimetre.
At the end of the match, the entire staff went to hug him and found a serene, even smug face, however different from the one that Toro had before the apparent “unlock” in the championship against Cagliari. Everyone congratulated themselves on the application, because the anti-Atalanta movements, designed to overcome Gasperini’s man-versus-man, had been reproduced to perfection on the pitch. Those opportunities in series, then clumsily devoured, were not random, but a consequence of the usual generous elbowing: it is in fact the way in which Lautaro is in the trenches, the first defender and not just the first attacker, that allows Inter to play so well.
waiting for the storm
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Inzaghi hoped, however, that after the first drizzle in Sardinia, following 8 dry matches, a storm would immediately arrive in the desert: nothing to do, we will have to update the weather forecast until Monday. Evidently the Argentine’s return to his old habits is more laborious, but no one among his teammates, coach and managers has the slightest doubt about what will happen in 2025: the shared belief is that Martinez will sooner or later return to the old stellar averages.
Simone himself knows that it is not Lautaro’s goals in themselves that bring about triumphs: what counts is the overall work directed by the Argentine himself. The very fact that he looked for the door so much is confirmation of a great vitality. And to caress the goalscorer’s ego, Inzaghi always tries to convey serenity, he who personally knows the psyche of those who live for goals: the coach has been repeating for weeks, in public but also in private, that Martinez only approaches to the word “solution”, never to “problem”.
ancient art
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Calm is needed, therefore, which is the opposite of persistence, which is also collective: on Thursday his teammates tried to make him score in every way, sometimes they were in a favorable position to finish but they served him stubbornly, but sometimes altruism was not necessary it risks even being harmful. The coach discussed this aspect yesterday, when the team returned to training in the afternoon on the Al-Riyadh pitch. Patience is a current need, it is needed today by the captain to definitively emerge from the crisis, but it is also an ancient virtue: here in the Middle East they know it well, despite everything changing in a breath of wind.
Veiled women, men with dishdasha – the long tunic down to the ankles, which cuts across every social class – and even foreign workers, even tourists who are slowly discovering the nation: everyone has waited ten years to see the maxi-metro come to life. Given the speed with which Saudi Arabia is transforming, an infinite amount of time: there is no contradiction, however, here old and new end up mixing. And so there is no contradiction between the old Lautaro, implacable in the doorway, and the new one, suddenly awkward. What persists and does not change is the sacrifice for the team, also the result of a new position on the field decided at the beginning of the year. The military occupation of the area now falls to Thuram, in serious doubt for the final, while the Argentine orbits behind the Frenchman more than he did in the star’s season.
leadership
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The leadership of Toro has never changed either, recognized and unassailable. When the teammates were teased in the post-Atalanta era about the mistakes of the number 10, they all erected a fortress in the desert: hands off our guide, they said in chorus. On Monday his partner could change and also the vision before his eyes: with Taremi, less congestion in the middle and, at least in theory, even more space to finish. Lautaro himself scored the last Super Cup final, exactly one year ago against Napoli: compared to then in Riyadh there is now a subway running underground and traffic has decreased, but certain customs have not changed, as has the hunger of the Bull .
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