Lautaro Mart\u00ednez has confirmed that Barcelona approached him this summer, while a separate report says Arsenal also made contact over a possible deal.<\/p>\n
The Inter striker, who joined the club in 2018, has spent years at the centre of transfer talk but has repeatedly stayed committed to the side he arrived at after leaving his homeland as a youngster.<\/p>\n
Barcelona were among the clubs linked with the 2022 World Cup winner as they looked for a successor to Robert Lewandowski. While much of the attention surrounded their public pursuit of fellow Argentina forward Juli\u00e1n Alvarez, Mart\u00ednez has now made clear that the interest in him was genuine.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Gran Gala del Calcio, the Italian FA\u2019s annual awards evening for the previous season\u2019s best performers, Mart\u00ednez addressed Barcelona\u2019s reported move directly. Asked about the interest by Sky Italia, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a great pleasure, a great honor, and an enormous satisfaction because you always work to improve, to move forward, to become better.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then explained why he chose not to leave, pointing to his connection with Inter and his life in Milan. \u201cWhen these offers or these calls from these huge clubs arrive, they\u2019re always welcome. It\u2019s a very important thing,\u201d he continued. \u201cNow I\u2019m in a city that has supported me in an incredible way since day one. I have a restaurant, my children go to school. I\u2019ll always be here because I feel good, because I\u2019m happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know in football. As long as they want me, those who are needed at Inter will be here. Of course, as I always say, it happens in every job. When you\u2019re no longer needed, in the end they send you away. Now I\u2019m here with all my heart and soul, just like I was on day one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rumors were true. But in the end, I wanted to stay here with my teammates, with these people, with these fans who have always been magnificent to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez was also named in the Serie A Team of the Year 2025-26 on Wednesday night and received the Best Forward award, with four Inter teammates included as well.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were also said to have been turned away after searching for attacking reinforcements late in the window. The Daily Mail reported that assistant manager Gabriel Heinze contacted his countryman at Inter last week, but the club \u201crefusing to entertain any kind of deal\u201d ended the matter there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mart\u00ednez confirms Barcelona spoke to him, while Arsenal\u2019s late enquiry over a move was also rebuffed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,1163],"tags":[59,180],"class_list":["post-19054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-transfers","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}