The parable of Lautaro Martínez: from the missed goal in Qatar to the fierce race with Keane, Haaland and Mbappé to the title of Europe’s top scorer

After a World Cup in which he failed to score due to a cursed ankle injury, Lautaro Martinez He returned to court strengthened. Yes, far from falling emotionally and in football terms, since then the Bull who grew up on the Tita Mattiussi Estate has not stopped believing in it. Last season it was the Inter flag that took the black and blues to the Champions League final against Pep and Julián Álvarez’s City. And this year he is even better: play (in his team he is not a static 9 but rather moves all over the pitch) and leadership (he is the captain of the team led by Inzaghi) he has recovered a fierce goal percentage. Lautaro has 23 goals in 26 Serie A dates and now the question is who is the best striker in the world who will emerge from the top European championships.

In Italy there seems to be no discussion about Lautaro’s leadership: he shouted 23 times and his direct pursuer is far behind. This is the Serbian of Juventus, Dusan Vlahovic, who scored 15 goals in football and the management of the Old Lady evaluates his performance as “exceptional”. So much so that they offered him a renewal until 2028 in exchange for 12 million euros. Giroud of Milan (15 goals) and Joya Dybala of Roma (12) go even further.

In the race for the title of European top scorer, Toro competes with nothing less than Harry Keane (he leads the league with 27 goals for Bayern Munich), Kylian Mbappe (21, PSG), the man of the Guinean national team and German Stuttgart, Serhou Guirassy (18) and the Manchester City animal Erling Haaland (17).

The bayan competes with those “children”. And the solution to the problem will come in June, when one of them will raise the Golden Boot which the top scorer of the European championships receives.

It is important to clarify that the Golden Boot will be awarded to the player who scores the most goals in the European championships, beyond the national cups or the Champions League. To be clear, the five goals Haaland scored against Luton Town are not part of this match because they were scored in the FA Cup.

So far, only two Argentinians have won the Golden Boot, one of them of course being Lionel Messi, who took home the Golden Boot six times (2009-10, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2016-17 , 2017-18 and 2018). -19).

The other name is much more distant: it is Chirola Yazalde.

It is worth putting an asterisk in the history of those who leave Independiente: on 12 May 1974 he scored his 46th goal for Sporting Lisbon; He was still 27 years old (he will be 17 days later) and, without knowing it, he recorded a mark that no one could break for 28 years. In the 2011/2012 season, Messi scored 50 goals and “stole” Chirola’s record.

Now Lautaro wants to be the third Argentine to win the Golden Shoe, but his biggest obstacle appears to be Harry Kane. The Englishman, former Tottenham of Bayern Munich, has 27 goals and is ahead of him by 4. Of these, he scored three from penalties, compared to two for Toro who missed one against Atalanta on Wednesday. Of course, Mbappé is very close there with 21. Haaland’s 17 seems distant, but if he continues to score with the ferocity he did against Luton Town, he will be a rival to fear.

Beyond Messi’s astronomical numbers, the last winner (in duplicate) of the award was Lewandowski with 35 (21-22 season) and 41 goals (in 20-21). Before, Ciro Immobile (19-20), of Lazio, had won it with 36. Before that, Messi had won in triplicate at Barcelona with 36 goals (in the 18-19 season), 34 (in the 17-18 season ) and 37 score (16-17).

Lautaro continues to write the history of Inter

Toro already has 128 goals for Inter in all competitions. He is already the Argentine who has scored the most goals for the Nerazzurri. The native of Bahi has just surpassed his compatriot Mauro Icardi and Christian Vieri and also the top scorer in history. His next goal is to enter the Top-6 and surpass the Hungarian Itsván Nyers with 133 shouts. Inter’s top scorer in history is even lower than Giuseppe Meazza with 284 goals, the man after whom the stadium is named.

Lautaro aims for everything: Serie A, Italian Cup, he will want to repeat Inter’s great performance in the Champions League and his greatest individual prize: being the top scorer in the European championships. Then he will move on to the other great goal of the year: bringing that flood of goals to the Argentine national team in the next Copa América.