‘I couldn’t speak for five days’ – Martinez reveals Champions League final aftermath

Lautaro Martinez has revealed he could not speak for five days after Inter’s Champions League final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.

The Italian giants were thrashed 5-0 in the final by the Parisian club in May, becoming the first team to lose the Champions League final by a five-goal margin.

That came off the back of a semi-final defeat to AC Milan in the Coppa Italia and missing out on the Serie A title to Napoli on the last day of the season.

Head coach Simone Inzaghi would leave to join Al-Hilal in the following days, disrupting Inter's preparations for the revamped Club World Cup, where they lost to Fluminense in the last 16.

Martinez admitted he felt helpless after the final, but also annoyed by Inter’s performance in the European showpiece, the second they had lost in the space of three years.

“I couldn’t speak for five days after the Champions League Final against PSG,” Martinez told France Football.

“I was blocked, a bit distressed, and sad. We reached two Champions League Finals in the last three years,” he said.

“We had a great run, but in the last game, we’ve always been missing something to achieve our main goal, which is to win the Champions League.

“We knew that PSG would be a tough opponent, a solid team with a lot of confidence. But we were strong as well.

“The last week, we prepared in a calm atmosphere, with a sense of peace and confidence. So yes, ‘helplessness’ is the right word for how we felt, because we couldn’t do any of what we had worked on.

“We just couldn’t translate that onto the pitch, and that was the thing that annoyed us the most.”