Is Enfant Terrible Mauro Icardi Poised for Greatness for Inter and Argentina?

The story of Mauro Icardi is many things, and how most of them are viewed is likely to depend on which football team you support. For fans of Inter Milan, the Argentinian is their captain, their most dangerous goal scorer and the man most likely to fire them back into contention both in Italy and abroad.

"We love him," Lorenzo, a lifelong member of the Nerazzurri faithful told Bleacher Report. "When we were struggling he was still there putting the ball in the back of the net, and he has stayed through our struggles. He's grown up a lot and become a fighter who doesn't care what people think. They always talk about his life outside of football but they can't stop him on the pitch."

That admiration is not replicated across the peninsula, however, with those who follow rival clubs far less complimentary. "Icardi? A disgusting man," spits an elderly Juventus supporter in Turin city centre when asked about the Inter striker. "We could never let a man like him wear our colours, I would be ashamed to cheer for him no matter what he did or how good he is."

Frankly the reasons for the loathing have nothing to do with football and everything to do with Icardi's private life. He may only be 24 years old, but Icardi has certainly kept both gossip magazines and sports reporters busy for years, first coming to prominence as a youngster when he scored at an astounding rate for Spanish side Union Deportiva Vecindario.

His family had moved to the Canary Islands when he was just six years old in order to escape the financial crisis engulfing their homeland of Argentina, but such was his prowess in front of goal that by 2008 he was snapped up by Barcelona.

Over the next three seasons, Icardi progressed through the ranks of their prestigious youth academy, only for the arrival of Pep Guardiola to quickly his limit his potential growth as one Spanish football expert explained to Bleacher Report recently.

"He started really well in La Masia and scored a lot of goals through various categories," David Cartlidge said of Icardi. "The problem was later with the Juvenil setup. He was playing well but the system changed with Pep coming back. So we had an era of 'false nines' that saw Icardi pushed to the side, and the opportunities became less frequent."

Indeed, with tiki-taka becoming the central ethos of the club, there was no longer space for a pure striker at the Camp Nou. Icardi quickly realised that if the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Villa were being shunned and sold, an unproven teenager was never going to be given space to prove himself.

"I have no regrets about leaving Barcelona. If a youngster wants to grow, then certain decisions have to be made," Icardi told El Blog de Mario Garcia de la Santa (h/t Goal). "At the time I spoke about it with my father, and we decided to move to Italy."

In January 2011 he would join Sampdoria, the deal eventually made permanent for a mere €400,000, and by the end of that season he had already been given his first-team debut. The Genoa-based club were promoted to Serie A, and it was then that Maxi Lopez became Icardi's team-mate, and the two began a friendship that would soon become front page news.

A nine-year age gap did not prevent the two Argentinians becoming close, and the elder man—who had also failed to become a regular at Barcelona—welcomed him into his family home and introduced him to his then-wife, Wanda Nara.

Icardi rapidly improved as Lopez help him learn the nuances of playing as a striker in the top flight, the youngster netting 10 league goals in his first full campaign, a haul that included a brace in a famous win at Juventus Stadium.

That eye-catching form was central to Inter snapping him up ahead of the 2013/14 season, paying €11.7 million to sign a striker who would quickly enhance his reputation even further by netting his first goal for the Nerazzurri against bitter rivals Juventus.

However, it was around this time that a story began to emerge that the 20-year-old had been having an affair with Maxi Lopez's wife, which Icardi then confirmed on Twitter. It seemed like the ultimate betrayal, only for Wanda Nara to tell a very different story to gossip magazine Chi.

She insisted that she had walked out on Lopez only after he cheated on her first (h/t La Gazzetta dello Sport, link in Italian). "I persevered out of love for our children," she told magazine Chi, per Paolo Bandini and Guardian Sport. "I forgave him so many times that I don't even know how I did it. ... When I started my relationship with Mauro, I had already divorced Maxi Lopez."

Inter's next match with Sampdoria was dubbed "The Wanda Derby," and the two strikers refused to shake hands. Icardi scored twice while Lopez missed a penalty.

A bitter row erupted as Icardi posted pictures of himself with Lopez and Nara's children on social media despite his former friend demanding that he stopped doing so in an interview with Sky Sport. 

Their argument continued for months as both men—and even Nara herself—dragged it up at every opportunity in interviews, yet it never seemed to make any impact on the young star. After being largely a reserve in his first season in Milan, Inter would make Icardi a regular in 2014/15, and he responded by clinching the Capocannoniere award as Serie A's leading scorer.

"I do what I want and don't care about the others," he told the Inter Channel (h/t FourFourTwo) at the time, shrugging off concerns over his private life once again as he shared the honour with Luca Toni after both men bagged 22 league goals.

Over the summer, Inter shocked the Italian football community by appointing the emotional striker as their new club captain after Andrea Ranocchia failed to shine in the role following the retirement of Icardi's illustrious compatriot.

"Being captain of this team after Javier Zanetti is an honour and a source of pride,” he told reporters at an event earlier this year, per Football Italia. "I love this team, and being captain is even better." Not everyone was convinced however, as Nima Tavallaey told Bleacher Report recently when asked his thoughts on initially seeing Icardi given the captain’s armband.

"I thought it was a gamble," the founder of fan site SempreInter.com explained. "Despite being very mature on the pitch, he is nonetheless young and I thought his previous conflicts with the Curva could potentially harm the team, which of course it did."

Didn't it just. As Inter took to the field against Cagliari last October, a banner (shown above) dominated the area behind the goal where their most reverent supporters gather. "You use a child to justify yourself and fling mud at us," it read. "You're not a man. You're not a captain. You are just a vile piece of s--t" it continued.

The club's leading ultra groups had been incensed by Icardi's new autobiography, in particular a passage where he had discussed an angry confrontation between himself, former midfielder Fredy Guarin and those same hardcore supporters back in February 2015.

"I come on during the second half and at the 83rd minute score my team's only goal, so it ended 3-1 to Sassuolo," Icardi wrote in his book Sempre Avanti (h/t Football Italia). "The fans start to shout: They call us to come over to their section. I find the courage to face them, along with Guarin. As I get closer, I receive insults and abuse of every kind. Attached to the netting is a kid who calls me: he wants my shirt."

"Considering his age, he could be my son: I take off my shirt and shorts and throw them to him, as a gift. This kid is in seventh heaven, and I am pleased to see him so happy. A head of the ultras jumps on him to take away the shirt and throws it back at me. This is when I start insulting him: 'Piece of s--t, you are acting all arrogant with a little kid to show off to the rest of the curva? Do you think you’re hard?'"

The Curva Nord ultras would then issue a statement in response, their recollection of those events seemingly very differently. "He talks about helping little kids, then invents an incident that never happened to make himself seem superior to us," it read, per Goal. "You are finished with us. You're done. TAKE THE ARMBAND OFF, YOU CLOWN. Yes, that is what we demand."

Icardi would apologise via Instagram, sign a new contract—negotiated by his agent, none other than Wanda Nara herself—and gradually begin to win supporters over once again. "It's definitely made him mentally stronger," Tavallaey says as he reflects on Icardi's 2016/17 performance. "He's only 24 years old, and everywhere he goes he hears slurs against himself and his wife by opposing fans and players alike but isn't provoked. Instead he keeps cool and scores consistently."

Incredibly given the furore that threatened to engulf him, not only did Icardi routinely find the back of the net as he always has, but there were clear signs throughout the campaign that he had improved his ability to contribute in other ways too.

Physically stronger, he was no longer easy to push off the ball and arguably delivered his finest display in an Inter shirt as he almost single-handedly delivered a victory over Juventus back in September.

Scoring one goal and laying on another, he once again ran roughshod over the vaunted Bianconeri backline, towering over them to net a powerful header before holding them off to provide Ivan Perisic's match-winning strike.

That assist was one of eight for Icardi last term—comfortably a career-high—while WhoScored.com figures show that the 43 scoring chances he created was nine more than he had ever recorded in a single season.

Watching him regularly is to see a player who is deadly in front of goal, who is also improving, maturing and growing mentally strong. These are attributes that only the most elite players are able to combine, with Icardi's on-field abilities pushing him into the conversation whenever the very best strikers are discussed.

Even Argentina have stopped ignoring his quality, adding him to their most recent squads despite the plethora of attacking stars at the disposal of coach Jorge Sampaoli, who explained at a recent press conference that he had been impressed by Icardi's positive attitude and approach.

"There were many doubts about the presence of Mauro," the former Sevilla boss said. "Not so much for what he can bring individually and for his inclusion in the group but why he was called when he could maybe not play. We had the opportunity to chat, we explained what we needed. It explained his attitude as a professional very well. He has come here despite knowing that he was very likely not going to get on the pitch than take advantage of the holidays."

With Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero and Gonzalo Higuain all at least five years older than him, it is clear that Icardi will have an increasingly prominent role for the Albiceleste moving forward. "Argentina is really obsessed with celebrity gossip, and that aspect of Icardi has been blown out of all proportion," South American football expert Dan Colasimone told Bleacher Report. "But he definitely warrants inclusion."

Peter Coates of golazoargentino.com continued on a similar theme, telling Bleacher Report that "Icardi remains a fairly divisive figure in Argentina given that, for all his goalscoring exploits, there are still the loud and influential voices of people like Diego Maradona, who stand by their belief that his private life means he should be excluded."

"Ultimately three years have softened the general public's stance, and many feel that Higuain and Aguero have had a fair crack at the whip and it is now time for a shake-up," Coates went on to say. "Icardi has become the poster boy for this movement. Now while Bauza and Martino ignored this, it's a promising sign that Sampaoli immediately called Icardi to his first squad. I don't think he will go straight into Sampaoli's first choice XI at this point, but more importantly if he is in consideration, there is greater pressure on Higuain."

"The two will be in direct competition for the No. 9 role, probably with Dybala playing in behind. If Higuain continues scoring plenty for Juventus and helps Argentina secure qualification, I'd expect him to remain as first choice, but certainly going forward beyond Russia, Icardi looks the best option."

Tavallaey is in no doubt that the same is true at club level. “He's the most lethal striker I've seen since Filippo Inzaghi's glory days, and if he continues in this fashion he's on route to being Inter's all-time leading goal scorer," the SempreInter founder told Bleacher Report.

"It's important to remember that Icardi has managed to score consistently at Inter during the most turbulent and difficult time the club has gone through in modern times. Now when the tide is turning with Suning and better players are coming in to feed him balls as well as creating space for him, there's no limit to how much he can potentially score."

That is ultimately the answer when it comes to discussing the Inter skipper and his incredible, limitless potential. Forget Maxi Lopez, the Nerazzurri fans who argue with him, the tattoos, the media attention and even wife/agent Wanda Nara—it's all irrelevant. What truly matters is that he's getting better, he's getting more attention and—sadly for those who despise him—he's not going away.

Mauro Icardi knows where the goal is, and he's very very good and putting the ball in the back of the net. He'll keep doing that whether you like him or not.