Among today’s players he is the most prolific. The band exalts him, mental work pays off, Vieri and Icardi are the strikers in the sights: the Argentine is at the top
– MILAN
The captain is a gentleman. He is a gentleman because he treats everything he knows about interismo with kid gloves. He is a gentleman, yes, the gentleman of the derby: none of the current Inter and Milan players has scored like Lautaro in the city match (8 goals). And there’s more: only six players have scored more goals than him in the history of this game. It could be enough, after all, to explain how much this (slow) approach to the derby on Saturday 16th feels on my skin. And yet there is more. Argentina calls, but there’s no corner of Lautaro’s head that doesn’t think at least a little about Milan.
GOALS
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Lautaro scores 10 and does it from 10, because for two days he’s been in the top ten goalscorers in Inter’s history. Lautaro also wants to score 20 and 30, while he’s at it. He winds like the Scudetto, like the second star. Thirty like the goals in the league, the bar set up there, and yes, this start to Serie A is going in that direction. Lautaro is the anti-Milan by definition. He comes from three goals in the last four derbies, from constant headaches caused to the Rossoneri defenders. He has gone up a step, the captain. And here, at least here, the band has nothing to do with it. The step that the Argentine made is mental, as he said himself in the post Fiorentina: «I’m trying to think more inside the field, imagining the play to make first, so as to gain an advantage over the opponent». Lautaro plays in advance. The coldness achieved in front of goal is before his eyes, even the most skeptical. The management of physical and mental energies is now exceptional: once he was Inter’s most substituted player, now the change is, if anything, just a sign of prudence. Because Inter can’t do without him. Because he is the man to hold onto to challenge Milan in the race for the Scudetto. Because no one has the realization capacity of him in their legs.
BLESSED BAND
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Lautaro knows how to put a load on his shoulders. It almost seems, looking at it, that the band has reassured him. He didn’t weigh down his Nerazzurri life. Rather, he embellished it. He finished it. Lautaro is the one who at the end of the match with Fiorentina spins a social photo in the company of Cuadrado. Yes, the Colombian served him an assist. But you can read much more, in that shot. Because Cuadrado is certainly not a man the fans have filled their hearts for. And then the captain sends a signal of union, as if to say: he’s one of us, here we all travel in the same direction.
TODAY AND TOMORROW
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Lautaro is the man of the present and the future of Inter. He is the man who erases the past. He did it with Lukaku because the disappointment was enormous, especially on a personal level. Taurus goes straight, without detours on the only issue that interests him: winning. And to do so, two other old Nerazzurri center forwards, Vieri and Icardi, are also aiming: they are 16 and 17 goals away, too few not to believe they can already be hooked this season. Lautaro is the leader of this Inter. Technically he is, he is also in the locker room. And he is recognized as such by the club: he is the highest paid player in the squad, the reference within a group that the club has decided to change profoundly, even to change some faces that weren’t exactly a stimulus for his teammates. Lautaro is for himself and for others. So much so that later, calmly, there is the company’s idea of adjusting his contract. But this is not the time.
A THOUSAND
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Now is the time to step on the accelerator. “The derby is special for us, Milan has strengthened a lot,” said the Argentine as he launched the challenge. He’s actually already going at a thousand per hour. Five goals in three games is the home page of a site where you can find everything. And all quality. The next step will be to cancel the dark periods once and for all. It happens to everyone, to him more frequently in truth. It has almost been a constant in his Inter seasons. The head does a lot, in similar situations. The Bull is fine in Milan. He doesn’t look for anything else. It is the other who sought him. The Arab money also arrived under his nose. But they weren’t enough to convince him. Nothing moves him from Inter. “Here they treated me like a son, I never forget certain things,” said the Argentine. The Nerazzurri as if it were a blood pact. It’s hard not to get attached to someone like this, even in today’s football. It’s hard not to keep our fingers crossed now that he’s gone to the national team. Difficult, impossible, not to think that Inter’s successes this season come from Lautaro. Why win a Scudetto, yes, he has already succeeded. But sewing the second star as captain is another music.
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