After a World Cup in which he couldn't score due to a damn ankle injury,
Lautaro Martínez
returned to the field stronger.
Yes, far from falling emotionally or football-wise, since then, the Toro raised on the Tita Mattiussi Estate has not stopped believing.
Last season, he was Inter's bannerman to take the Neroazzurro to the Champions League final against Pep and Julián Álvarez's City.
And this year it is even better: his play (on his team he is not a static 9 but moves throughout the playing field) and leadership (he is the captain of the team led by Inzaghi) recovered a fierce goal percentage.
Lautaro has 23 goals in the 26 rounds of Serie A and now the discussion is
who is the best striker in the world
who will emerge from the top leagues in Europe.
In Italy there seems to be no discussion about Lautaro's leadership: he shouted 23 times and his immediate follower is far behind.
This is Juventus' Serbian, Dusan Vlahovic, who has 15 goals in Calcio and the Vecchia Signora board evaluates his performance as "exceptional."
So much so that they offered him a renewal until 2028 in exchange for 12 million euros.
Giroud from Milan (15 goals) and Joya Dybala in Roma (12) come even further.
In the discussion for being the Top European Scorer, El Toro competes with none other than
Harry Keane
(leads the list with 27 goals for Bayern Munich),
Kylian Mbappé
(21, PSG), the man of the Guinea National Team and the German Stuttgart,
Serhou Guirassy
(18), and Manchester City's animal
Erling Haaland
(17).
The Bahian competes with those "babies".
And the solution to the problem will come in June when one of them lifts the Golden Boot that the top scorer in the European Leagues receives.
It is worth clarifying that the Golden Boot will be obtained by the player who scores the most goals in the European leagues, beyond the national cups or the Champions League.
To be graphic, the five goals that Haaland scored against Luton Town do not enter this race because he scored them for the FA Cup.
Until now, only two Argentines have won the Golden Boot. Obviously, one of them was Lionel Messi who took home the golden boot six times (2009-10, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2016-17 , 2017-18 and 2018-19).
The man with the golden feet: Messi, the biggest winner of the boot.
EFE/Andreu Dalmau
The other name is much more distant: it is
Chirola Yazalde
.
It is worth making an asterisk in the history of the one who emerged from Independiente: on May 12, 1974 he scored his 46th goal for Sporting Lisbon;
He was still 27 years old (he would turn 17 days later) and, without knowing it, he registered 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 Boot. His biggest obstacle seems to be Harry Kane.
The Englishman, former Tottenham of Bayern Munich, has 27 goals and is ahead of him by 4. Of those, he scored three from a penalty, against the two from Toro who this Wednesday missed one against Atalanta.
Of course, Mbappé is very close there with 21. Haaland's 17 seems far away, 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), from Lazio, took it with 36. Before that, Messi won it in triplicate at Barcelona with 36 goals (in the 18-19 season), 34 (in the 17-18 ) and 37 scores (16-17).
Lautaro continues making history at Inter
El Toro already has 128 goals for Inter in all competitions.
He is already the Argentine who scored the most goals for the Neroazzurro.
The Bahi native has just surpassed his compatriot Mauro Icardi and Christian Vieri and also the top scorer in history.
His next goal is to get into the Top-6 and surpass the Hungarian Itsván Nyers with 133 shouts.
The top scorer in Inter's history is even less than Giuseppe Meazza with 284 goals, the man after whom the stadium is named.
Lautaro is going for everything: Serie A, Italian Cup, he will want to repeat Inter's great performance in the Champions League and for his greatest individual prize: being the top scorer in the European leagues.
Afterwards, he will move on to his other great goal of the year: bringing that flood of goals to the Argentine National Team in the next Copa América.