Breaking club records has become almost routine for Internazionale forward Lautaro Martínez.
Last season, the 28-year-old Argentina international eclipsed former Italy forward Sandro Mazzola’s high-water mark for European Cup goals. This term, he has overtaken Mazzola as the fourth-highest scorer in Inter’s history and become the first player ever to score against 29 different Serie A teams.
With 10 league goals so far this season, half of which have come in the Nerrazuri’s past five games, Martínez not only stands two clear of AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic at the top of the Serie A scoring charts, but also requires only four more goals to draw level with Roberto Boninsegna’s club tally of 167.
Could Lautaro Martínez become Inter’s all-time leading goalscorer?
Barring calamity, that milestone will surely be reached before long, which would leave Alessandro Altobelli and Giuseppe Meazza, who respectively scored 209 and 284 goals for Inter, as the only men standing between Martínez and a unique place in the club’s history. Altobelli, for one, believes his fellow World Cup winner is up to the task.
“It’ll happen, he’ll catch me – luckily, I might add!” Altobelli, a man content to see his own records surpassed, told Gazzetta dello Sport. “Let’s just hope he stays healthy, because when he’s in form, he sees the goal like no other. And let’s hope he never leaves us, like so many others have, precisely because he’s not the same. He deserves every joy, I don’t wish him 200 goals, but 400.
“Lautaro has been, for some time now, among the best in the world, and not just in Serie A. Let’s do the math: he’s 28 years old and, assuming he plays for Inter until he’s 34, so another six seasons, he can score another 100 goals. Even the record set by the great Meazza isn’t off limits to him.”
How Martínez will try to extend scoring streak against Parma
It remains to be seen whether Martínez, whose form this season has not insulated him from criticism, can fulfil that prediction. The striker’s immediate focus is on Wednesday night’s trip to Parma, where he will seek to sustain his assault on another club landmark.
Should the forward score for a sixth successive league game, he will edge closer to the record of fellow countryman Julio Cruz, who scored in seven straight matches in 2007, the last Inter player to do so.
Not that Martínez, who prefers to see the bigger picture, is likely to be dwelling on that statistical footnote on a night that could, temporarily at least, stretch Inter’s Serie A lead to four points.
“Me in Inter’s history?” he reflected after opening the scoring in last month’s 4-0 win over Como. “Even I sometimes don’t realise what I’ve earned with work and sacrifice.”
