Inter Milan walk back into the Champions League on Tuesday night with the hardest opening act European football can offer: Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. The setting is familiar, the stakes even more so. For Inter, this competition is not a romantic notion. It is a wound and a target.
Three European Cups sit in the club’s history, the last of them lifted in 2010 under the man now plotting against them, Jose Mourinho. Since then, Inter have twice climbed the steps to a final, in 2023 and again in 2025, only to leave with nothing but regrets and runners-up medals.
Lautaro Martinez is tired of the near-misses.
“It’s an objective,” he said, cutting through the suggestion that Inter’s Champions League dream belongs in the realm of fantasy. “We all have dreams, but this is more than just an obsession. We have to stay calm, we know that there are a lot of strong teams out there. It’s definitely a goal for us.”
This is not a new line from him, and he knows it.
“Ever since I first came here, I’ve repeated that we have to work hard to deliver as many trophies as possible for Inter.”
At the Bernabeu, the Inter captain meets a familiar figure from the global stage: Kylian Mbappe. The Frenchman, a declared Milan fan, has spent the build-up talking up the opposition rather than dismissing them. He has called Inter a side that command respect and labelled Martinez one of the finest centre-forwards in the game.
The compliments reached the Argentine’s ears. They did not soften his edge.
“I’ve heard what he had to say,” Martinez replied. “We’ll be up against a team with lots of champions, but we have our own weapons and players who prove that they are at a top level year after year. We’ve prepared well, we’ve recovered our energy. We know who we’re playing against and Mbappe is definitely one of the best strikers in the world.”
That is the tightrope Inter must walk in Madrid: respect without fear. Cristian Chivu’s side arrive knowing Real’s individual quality can rip open any opponent in a heartbeat, but Martinez insists Inter carry enough tactical variety and firepower to trade blows with the Spanish giants in their own arena.
The duel with Mbappe will grab the headlines. The context behind it runs deeper. Martinez is now the face of Inter’s latest push to turn frustration into silver, the striker who has lived both the heartbreak of lost finals and the euphoria of a World Cup win.
Yet the conversation around him on Monday did not stay confined to club football.
Questions quickly turned to Julian Alvarez, his Argentina teammate, currently wrestling with a difficult spell at Atletico Madrid. Alvarez made it clear over the summer that he wanted out, with a move to Barcelona high on his list. Atletico’s hierarchy shut that door firmly, unwilling to strengthen a direct domestic rival, and left the forward to continue under Diego Simeone.
Martinez did not hide his sympathy.
“Alvarez is a friend of mine. It’s not an easy moment for him, but the decision was made by the President of his club. I hope he continues to show the level that he always has.”
Those words carried more than polite solidarity. They revealed the tight bonds inside the Argentina dressing room, bonds that survive club rivalries and Champions League storylines. On Tuesday, Alvarez’s struggles and Simeone’s decisions will be someone else’s drama. For Martinez, the friendship remains, even as he chases his own piece of history.
Then came the subject that lingers over every Argentina gathering now: life after Lionel Messi.
Messi’s retirement from international football has closed an era that Martinez lived from inside the inner circle. Together they lifted the 2022 World Cup, then marched back to another final in 2026. The end was always going to come; the reality still lands heavily.
“We all knew the time would come,” Martinez admitted. “It was a major bit of news given what Leo means to the team and to all of us. I will take everything he taught us with me.”
That is the weight he carries into Madrid. No Messi behind him. No Mourinho beside him. Just a captain who has turned from apprentice to standard-bearer, trying to drag Inter from the status of nearly men back to champions of Europe.
The Bernabeu has broken plenty of visiting sides. On Tuesday night, it will show whether Lautaro Martinez and this Inter are ready to turn old scars into something far more dangerous: conviction.
