However, things would soon unravel for Inter. Two minutes after Dimarco seemingly made Inter's lead safe, Atlético halved the aggregate deficit via a goal scored by Antoine Griezmann. Later, with just three minutes left in regulation time, Memphis Depay scored the goal that put Atlético a goal ahead on the evening - and more crucially, tied the aggregate scoreline.
Extra time failed to yield any further goals, so the match ended in a penalty shootout. Following back-to-back misses by Inter duo Alexis Sánchez and Davy Klaassen, it was up to Argentinian centre-forward Lautaro Martínez to sink the penalty that would keep Inter's Champions League hopes alive. Inter's star striker who has been having a career-best season and leads the Serie A scoring race by a sizeable gap stepped forth - and did not even come close with his effort from the spot, sending Atlético through to the quarterfinals for the third time over the past five seasons.
Think of all the sports clichés that exist about delivering in clutch moments - "to have that dog in him", "to have ice in his veins", or more simply, "to be him". Whatever the metaphor may be, Martínez embodies its exact opposite. Again and again he has come up short when the moment demanded that he step up. In the 2020 Europa League final against Sevilla, Martínez turned in a dismal performance and at times looked completely lost on the pitch - and this in a match which Inter were widely expected to comfortably win.
Some initially brushed off this Europa League final loss, citing Martínez's relative youth - he was just about to turn 23 at the time - as well as the fact that this was his first significant European final, and one in a pandemic-interrupted season at that. However, the reality was that what we saw from Martínez then was just a taste of what was to come.
In Argentina's first match of the 2022 World Cup, the Albiceleste faced off against underdogs Saudi Arabia with Martínez starting at centre-forward. Martínez had an absolute disasterclass against the Middle Easterners, being caught offside on countless occasions, squandering multiple promising attacking thrusts, and ultimately being the chief culprit behind Argentina's shocking 2-1 loss. Following the match, Martínez was promptly benched in favour of Manchester City striker Julián Álvarez. At this point, it should come as no surprise that Argentina would go on to win the tournament with Álvarez starting and Martínez largely riding the pine.
Fast forward half a year later and Inter are in the Champions League final against Manchester City. Although Martínez didn't play quite as poorly as he did in the matches already mentioned, he was nonetheless at a level far below that of which he's capable - but this time around, escaped the bulk of the criticism after Romelu Lukaku's astonishing error prevented Inter from equalizing and sending the match to extra time.
Following this latest clutch-time failure, it's now safe to say that Martínez belongs in the same category as Lukaku - that of a "flat-track bully" who falters when the lights are brightest and the pressure is highest. Despite his impressive goalscoring record, there is a reason nobody fears Martínez the way they might Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappé, or Mohamed Salah, among others. Martínez is clearly a player who shrinks under the spotlight - and for a club like Inter, that's simply not good enough if they are to make frequent deep Champions League runs instead of leaving last season as an outlier.
Is it possible that Lautaro Martínez will end up turning things around? Well, at 26, there's still time for him to rewrite the narrative of his career thus far. However, based on everything we've seen from him thus far, the prospects of such don't look promising at all.
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