I prefer to watch a basketball game rather than a football match.
Careers of South American footballers tend to follow a seemingly similar pathway.
Step one: an early start playing football anywhere – in the street, on the beach, futsal.
Step two: joining a professional club academy in teenagehood.
Step three: a move to Europe, not long after breaking through into senior football back home.
The story of Inter Milan striker Lautaro Martínez is, on one hand, not much different. But, on the other, it is quite unique.
Football family
The Argentine signed for the Nerazzurri in 2018 from Racing Club de Avellaneda whom he had joined aged 16 from local club Liniers de Bahía Blanca, where he was born.
He has two brothers and, as usually the case with senior footballers, is not the oldest of the three.
He also initially struggled upon leaving his home for Racing as he was missing his older brother.
However, Lautaro comes from a football family, which – perhaps contrary to common knowledge – relatively rarely transfers into a professional career in the game.
His father, Mario, played in the Argentinian second division for five seasons and in the third tier for another 13 campaigns. For different clubs, too, which meant the family was often on the move when Lautaro and his two brothers were children.
Today, all three are sportsmen. Alan (born in 1996) plays at centre-half for Liniers. Lautaro (born in August 1997) is an Argentina international. Meanwhile, Jano (born in 2003) has also already played for the national team and is currently the youngest player in the second division in Argentina.
But in basketball.
And it is the 16-year-old who last week revealed that his now famous older brother could have chosen a different sport, too.
“When we were all together in Bahía, we would always play a 2-v-2 on the court of Villa Mitre”, Jano said. “Me and my old man against Alan and Lautaro.”
“At one point, when 15, he nearly chose basketball when my old man asked him to go for one of the two sports… But of course, he was already very good at football back then.”
In fact, this story had been confirmed by Lautaro himself – back in this interview for El Gráfico in 2017.
“I very much like basketball”, he had said. “I would play it as a child, but at 15 I had to chose and I went for football. However, if I were not a footballer, I would play basketball, I love it. What is more: I prefer to watch a basketball game rather than a football match.”
Lautaro also started out playing anywhere then. Just not only football.
In the picture: the Martínez family (found here)
BREAKTHROUGH 