Martinez rushing to be ready for Barca showdown, says Inter’s Inzaghi

MILAN: Simone Inzaghi said on Monday that Lautaro Martinez is in a race against time to be fit to play in Inter Milan´s Champions League showdown with Barcelona at the San Siro.

Inter captain Martinez hasn´t played since being forced off with a hamstring injury in last week´s thrilling first leg, which left the semi-final beautifully poised at 3-3. The 27-year-old and France defender Benjamin Pavard are the two major injury doubts for Inter, with Martinez crucial to Inter´s run to the last four.

Striker Martinez has scored seven times in the Champions League since the turn of the year, including in both quarter-final matches against Bayern Munich.

“We´ll decide with the medical staff and the players because it will be them who need to tell me how they´re feeling,” said Inzaghi.

“Yesterday Pavard took part in the first part of training and he felt OK, so we´ll see. Lautaro hasn´t trained since the last match with Barca so let´s see how he is today and then we´ll decide.”

Inzaghi said that Martinez will only be selected if he can start, suggesting that he won´t be available for the clash which could determine Inter´s season with the Serie A title likely heading to Napoli.

“It´s unlikely that a player who can´t start the match would be able to help us out in the last 25 minutes,” added Inzaghi. Inzaghi admitted that stopping Lamine Yamal will be a priority after the teenage Spain star ran Inter´s defence ragged in Catalonia, scoring a wonderful goal and twice striking the woodwork.

“It´s going to be really hard, we have to try to stop him getting the ball but that´s almost impossible in today´s football,” said Inzaghi. “He´ll be getting special attention from us. We´ll obviously double up on him, we´ll try to give him as much attention as possible but like we said after the first match he is a great talent.