In tango, to perform an amague is to pull off a false move. A fake step. A gesture to plant down your free leg without actually following through. For Diego Milito, it will always be the flourish he added to his footwork before scoring the first of his two goals for Inter Milan in their 2-1 victory against Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final.
Until the Argentinian forward’s stutter step, the build-up to Inter’s opening strike had been all quick-quick-quick. It was devastatingly direct, the ball taking just eight seconds to travel from goalkeeper Júlio César at one end of the Santiago Bernabéu and into the net at the other. But Milito’s deft embellishment before shooting was the icing on the cake, the caramel on the alfajor.
“Júlio César kicked a long ball towards me,” recalls Milito. “I went for it with [Martín] Demichelis, who was huge. I still remember everything, frame by frame. I managed to send the ball towards Wesley [Sneijder]. I knew that, with him, the right pass would always come so I began to run straight, deep, towards the goal. I controlled the ball well and I saw [Holger] Badstuber arriving from the right. So I did an amague – and an instant later I was running wildly to celebrate.”
The word amague comes from the Spanish verb amagar and in football it means a feint, a move calculated to mislead your opponent. Milito was under pressure yet he still mustered the speed of thought to fool Bayern keeper Hans- Jörg Butt, shaping to shoot before holding back, an almost imperceptible sequence that left Butt off balance and allowed the Inter No22 to finish beyond him.
In tango, to perform an amague is to pull off a false move. A fake step. A gesture to plant down your free leg without actually following through. For Diego Milito, it will always be the flourish he added to his footwork before scoring the first of his two goals for Inter Milan in their 2-1 victory against Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final.
Until the Argentinian forward’s stutter step, the build-up to Inter’s opening strike had been all quick-quick-quick. It was devastatingly direct, the ball taking just eight seconds to travel from goalkeeper Júlio César at one end of the Santiago Bernabéu and into the net at the other. But Milito’s deft embellishment before shooting was the icing on the cake, the caramel on the alfajor.
“Júlio César kicked a long ball towards me,” recalls Milito. “I went for it with [Martín] Demichelis, who was huge. I still remember everything, frame by frame. I managed to send the ball towards Wesley [Sneijder]. I knew that, with him, the right pass would always come so I began to run straight, deep, towards the goal. I controlled the ball well and I saw [Holger] Badstuber arriving from the right. So I did an amague – and an instant later I was running wildly to celebrate.”
The word amague comes from the Spanish verb amagar and in football it means a feint, a move calculated to mislead your opponent. Milito was under pressure yet he still mustered the speed of thought to fool Bayern keeper Hans- Jörg Butt, shaping to shoot before holding back, an almost imperceptible sequence that left Butt off balance and allowed the Inter No22 to finish beyond him.
Quick and to the point, this was a goal that symbolised the Nerazzurri under José Mourinho. Beauty meets functionality. A tango played to perfection by an orquesta típica featuring violins, bandoneons, a piano, a double bass and clarinet – not a meandering song on a lone guitar. A team in which a Champions League winner like Samuel Eto’o would play at full- back when asked. A team whose unity and solidity allowed them to reach that final after resisting for over an hour with ten men at the Camp Nou as a fearsome Barcelona side attacked.
And a team with a strong Argentinian flavour too, of course. Not just Milito but his room-mate Esteban Cambiasso as well, legendary captain Javier Zanetti and ‘asado king’ Walter Samuel. “The evening before the final in Madrid I remember the usual ritual,” says Milito. “[A drink of] mate for everyone in Samuel’s room. We wanted to relax but also motivate ourselves so we watched Iluminados Por El Fuego, an Argentinian film about our heroes in the Malvinas/Falklands war. Chills. Then sleep.”
La Boca in Buenos Aires is considered one of the birthplaces of the tango. Many Italian immigrants, particularly from Genoa, settled in this neighbourhood at the end of the 19th century and left an indelible imprint, including the founding of the legendary Boca Juniors football club. Milito himself joined Inter from Genoa in summer 2009 and was charged with replacing Zlatan Ibrahimović, who had left for Barcelona. Back then, not even the most optimistic Inter fan could have predicted that, less than a year later, San Siro would be packed with supporters at six in the morning, all waiting to celebrate the club’s first European title in 45 years with the humble striker and his colleagues.
“That morning, San Siro was the most magical place in the world,” says Milito. “It was only us, the Inter people. I was exhausted. Exhausted with joy.” Moments later, the soundtrack of their triumph would switch to a doleful Portuguese fado as Mourinho surprised everyone by announcing he was leaving the club. But that Madrid victory had already earned him immortality among the Inter faithful, who look back on the 2010 final as the most spectacular tango imaginable – a fast-tempo dance with European glory, embellished by Milito’s unforgettable amague.
In tango, to perform an amague is to pull off a false move. A fake step. A gesture to plant down your free leg without actually following through. For Diego Milito, it will always be the flourish he added to his footwork before scoring the first of his two goals for Inter Milan in their 2-1 victory against Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final.
Until the Argentinian forward’s stutter step, the build-up to Inter’s opening strike had been all quick-quick-quick. It was devastatingly direct, the ball taking just eight seconds to travel from goalkeeper Júlio César at one end of the Santiago Bernabéu and into the net at the other. But Milito’s deft embellishment before shooting was the icing on the cake, the caramel on the alfajor.
“Júlio César kicked a long ball towards me,” recalls Milito. “I went for it with [Martín] Demichelis, who was huge. I still remember everything, frame by frame. I managed to send the ball towards Wesley [Sneijder]. I knew that, with him, the right pass would always come so I began to run straight, deep, towards the goal. I controlled the ball well and I saw [Holger] Badstuber arriving from the right. So I did an amague – and an instant later I was running wildly to celebrate.”
The word amague comes from the Spanish verb amagar and in football it means a feint, a move calculated to mislead your opponent. Milito was under pressure yet he still mustered the speed of thought to fool Bayern keeper Hans- Jörg Butt, shaping to shoot before holding back, an almost imperceptible sequence that left Butt off balance and allowed the Inter No22 to finish beyond him.
In tango, to perform an amague is to pull off a false move. A fake step. A gesture to plant down your free leg without actually following through. For Diego Milito, it will always be the flourish he added to his footwork before scoring the first of his two goals for Inter Milan in their 2-1 victory against Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final.
Until the Argentinian forward’s stutter step, the build-up to Inter’s opening strike had been all quick-quick-quick. It was devastatingly direct, the ball taking just eight seconds to travel from goalkeeper Júlio César at one end of the Santiago Bernabéu and into the net at the other. But Milito’s deft embellishment before shooting was the icing on the cake, the caramel on the alfajor.
“Júlio César kicked a long ball towards me,” recalls Milito. “I went for it with [Martín] Demichelis, who was huge. I still remember everything, frame by frame. I managed to send the ball towards Wesley [Sneijder]. I knew that, with him, the right pass would always come so I began to run straight, deep, towards the goal. I controlled the ball well and I saw [Holger] Badstuber arriving from the right. So I did an amague – and an instant later I was running wildly to celebrate.”
The word amague comes from the Spanish verb amagar and in football it means a feint, a move calculated to mislead your opponent. Milito was under pressure yet he still mustered the speed of thought to fool Bayern keeper Hans- Jörg Butt, shaping to shoot before holding back, an almost imperceptible sequence that left Butt off balance and allowed the Inter No22 to finish beyond him.
In tango, to perform an amague is to pull off a false move. A fake step. A gesture to plant down your free leg without actually following through. For Diego Milito, it will always be the flourish he added to his footwork before scoring the first of his two goals for Inter Milan in their 2-1 victory against Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final.
Until the Argentinian forward’s stutter step, the build-up to Inter’s opening strike had been all quick-quick-quick. It was devastatingly direct, the ball taking just eight seconds to travel from goalkeeper Júlio César at one end of the Santiago Bernabéu and into the net at the other. But Milito’s deft embellishment before shooting was the icing on the cake, the caramel on the alfajor.
“Júlio César kicked a long ball towards me,” recalls Milito. “I went for it with [Martín] Demichelis, who was huge. I still remember everything, frame by frame. I managed to send the ball towards Wesley [Sneijder]. I knew that, with him, the right pass would always come so I began to run straight, deep, towards the goal. I controlled the ball well and I saw [Holger] Badstuber arriving from the right. So I did an amague – and an instant later I was running wildly to celebrate.”
The word amague comes from the Spanish verb amagar and in football it means a feint, a move calculated to mislead your opponent. Milito was under pressure yet he still mustered the speed of thought to fool Bayern keeper Hans- Jörg Butt, shaping to shoot before holding back, an almost imperceptible sequence that left Butt off balance and allowed the Inter No22 to finish beyond him.
Quick and to the point, this was a goal that symbolised the Nerazzurri under José Mourinho. Beauty meets functionality. A tango played to perfection by an orquesta típica featuring violins, bandoneons, a piano, a double bass and clarinet – not a meandering song on a lone guitar. A team in which a Champions League winner like Samuel Eto’o would play at full- back when asked. A team whose unity and solidity allowed them to reach that final after resisting for over an hour with ten men at the Camp Nou as a fearsome Barcelona side attacked.
And a team with a strong Argentinian flavour too, of course. Not just Milito but his room-mate Esteban Cambiasso as well, legendary captain Javier Zanetti and ‘asado king’ Walter Samuel. “The evening before the final in Madrid I remember the usual ritual,” says Milito. “[A drink of] mate for everyone in Samuel’s room. We wanted to relax but also motivate ourselves so we watched Iluminados Por El Fuego, an Argentinian film about our heroes in the Malvinas/Falklands war. Chills. Then sleep.”
La Boca in Buenos Aires is considered one of the birthplaces of the tango. Many Italian immigrants, particularly from Genoa, settled in this neighbourhood at the end of the 19th century and left an indelible imprint, including the founding of the legendary Boca Juniors football club. Milito himself joined Inter from Genoa in summer 2009 and was charged with replacing Zlatan Ibrahimović, who had left for Barcelona. Back then, not even the most optimistic Inter fan could have predicted that, less than a year later, San Siro would be packed with supporters at six in the morning, all waiting to celebrate the club’s first European title in 45 years with the humble striker and his colleagues.
“That morning, San Siro was the most magical place in the world,” says Milito. “It was only us, the Inter people. I was exhausted. Exhausted with joy.” Moments later, the soundtrack of their triumph would switch to a doleful Portuguese fado as Mourinho surprised everyone by announcing he was leaving the club. But that Madrid victory had already earned him immortality among the Inter faithful, who look back on the 2010 final as the most spectacular tango imaginable – a fast-tempo dance with European glory, embellished by Milito’s unforgettable amague.
In tango, to perform an amague is to pull off a false move. A fake step. A gesture to plant down your free leg without actually following through. For Diego Milito, it will always be the flourish he added to his footwork before scoring the first of his two goals for Inter Milan in their 2-1 victory against Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final.
Until the Argentinian forward’s stutter step, the build-up to Inter’s opening strike had been all quick-quick-quick. It was devastatingly direct, the ball taking just eight seconds to travel from goalkeeper Júlio César at one end of the Santiago Bernabéu and into the net at the other. But Milito’s deft embellishment before shooting was the icing on the cake, the caramel on the alfajor.
“Júlio César kicked a long ball towards me,” recalls Milito. “I went for it with [Martín] Demichelis, who was huge. I still remember everything, frame by frame. I managed to send the ball towards Wesley [Sneijder]. I knew that, with him, the right pass would always come so I began to run straight, deep, towards the goal. I controlled the ball well and I saw [Holger] Badstuber arriving from the right. So I did an amague – and an instant later I was running wildly to celebrate.”
The word amague comes from the Spanish verb amagar and in football it means a feint, a move calculated to mislead your opponent. Milito was under pressure yet he still mustered the speed of thought to fool Bayern keeper Hans- Jörg Butt, shaping to shoot before holding back, an almost imperceptible sequence that left Butt off balance and allowed the Inter No22 to finish beyond him.
