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What religion is Lautaro Martínez?
Lautaro Martínez is an Argentine professional footballer who is a practicing Christian.
Lautaro Martínez plays as a striker for the Serie A club Inter Milan and for the Argentina national team and is considered by many as one of the best strikers in the world. He played youth football with Atlético Liniers and Racing Club between 2006 and 2015. In January 2016, he was promoted to the first team of Racing Club. In July 2018, he joined Italian club Inter Milan for a transfer fee of €22.7 million. Among his career accomplishments, he won three Serie A titles, three Coppa Italias, and three Supercoppa Italiana trophies with Inter Milan and was named the Serie A Most Valuable Player for the 2023–24 season.
On the international stage, he won the 2021 Copa América, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and the 2024 Copa América, where he also claimed the Golden Boot after scoring the winning goal in the final.
Contracts, salary & career earnings
On 12 August 2024, Martínez signed a contract extension with Inter Milan running until 30 June 2029. Under this agreement, Martínez earns a gross annual salary of approximately €16.6 million, and this breaks down to a weekly gross wage of roughly €320,577. This massive deal makes him both the highest-paid player at Inter Milan and the absolute highest earner in Serie A.
Reports show his net take-home salary is around €9 million per year after Italian taxes. Before signing this new deal, his previous contract paid him a reported €6 million net each season. His wages have risen in stages throughout his successful time at Inter. He earned around €2.7 million a year during his first two seasons. His pay then jumped to €11.1 million a year by 2022–23 before his 2024 renewal pushed his salary above €16 million annually.
Early life
Lautaro Martínez was born on August 22, 1997, in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. His father, Mario Martínez, played football as a left-back for several regional Argentine clubs.
Martínez came through the youth academy system of Club Atlético Liniers. On July 10, 2014, he moved to the under-20 team at Racing Club on a free transfer.
Racing Club
Following his integration into the youth system, Martínez scored 53 goals in 64 appearances for the Racing Club reserve team. Real Madrid actually agreed on a transfer deal to sign him in 2015, but Lautaro chose to stay in Argentina.
Martínez made his first-team debut on 1 November 2015 during the 2015 Argentine Primera División campaign, appearing as a second-half substitute in a 3–0 victory over Cruzeiro. He scored his first senior goal later that same month and subsequently became a regular starter during the 2016–17 season, where he scored 9 goals in 23 league appearances. In December 2017, Martínez underwent a medical examination with Atlético Madrid ahead of a proposed transfer. However, Racing Club felt angry that Atlético did the medical without permission, and Lautaro signed a new contract to stay instead.
On 27 February 2018, he scored a hat-trick on his Copa Libertadores debut in a 4–2 victory. In total, Martínez scored 27 goals in 62 appearances across all competitions before he moved to Italy.
Inter Milan
Martínez joined Inter on 4 July 2018 for a reported fee of €22.7 million, and he signed a five-year contract with the club. A month later, on 19 August, Martínez made his official debut for Inter Milan in a Serie A match against US Sassuolo.
On 8 March 2022, he scored against Liverpool in a 1–0 victory at Anfield, marking Inter’s first Champions League knockout goal in 3,600 days. He was later named Inter captain and became the absolute leader of the club’s frontline.
During the 2023–24 season, Martínez finished as Serie A’s top goalscorer with 24 goals in 33 league appearances, finishing eight goals ahead of his nearest competitor, and was named both Serie A Most Valuable Player and Inter’s Player of the Year. He retained his position at the top of the Serie A scoring charts during the 2025–26 campaign. Throughout his tenure at Inter Milan, Martínez has won three Serie A titles, three Coppa Italia honors, and three Supercoppa Italiana trophies, while also reaching the UEFA Champions League final in 2023 and 2025. At the end of the 2025-26 season, he had recorded 175 goals in 376 appearances across all competitions for the club.
International career
Martínez made his senior international debut for Argentina in March 2018 and scored his first international goal the following October. He was a key part of the squad that won the 2021 Copa América, beating rivals Brazil in the final to end the country’s 28-year trophy wait. In June 2022, he scored and made an assist to help Argentina beat Italy 3–0 in the Finalissima at Wembley Stadium.
He made the final squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and started the opening two group matches before being replaced in the starting lineup by Julián Álvarez, subsequently appearing as a substitute for the remainder of the tournament. On 9 December 2022, he scored the decisive penalty in the quarter-final shootout victory against the Netherlands and later appeared as an extra-time substitute in the final, which Argentina won on penalties following a 3–3 draw with France.
Martínez finished as Argentina’s top scorer at the 2024 Copa América with five goals. His excellent form won him the Golden Boot and saw him score the winning goal in the final against Colombia. In November 2024, he scored against Peru to match Diego Maradona as Argentina’s fifth-highest scorer of all time with 32 goals. He later played for Argentina at the recent 2026 FIFA World Cup, scoring against Jordan, Switzerland, and England, including a stoppage-time winning header in a 2–1 semi-final victory over England. He appeared in his second consecutive World Cup final on 19 July 2026, where Argentina finished as runners-up following a 1–0 extra-time defeat to Spain.
Personal life
In 2023, Martínez married Agustina Gandolfo, whom he had first met in 2018. Together, they have two children.