World Cup: Champions League winner Diego Milito gives Argentina a problem

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At the same time that Diego Milito was scoring both goals Saturday to lead Italy’s Inter Milan to a 2-0 European Champions League victory over Germany’s Bayern Munich, most of the rest of Argentina’s World Cup-bound players were training in Buenos Aires.

There, Manchester City forward Carlos Tevez told reporters just how much he welcomed having to compete for a starting spot in South Africa with Barcleona’s Lionel Messi and Real Madrid’s Gonzalo Higuain.

The three players, Tevez said, would make it difficult for Coach Diego Maradona to decide which two to select as starters for Argentina’s World Cup opening game against Nigeria on June 12.

‘Diego’s not going to have it easy, it’s going to be hard for him,’ Tevez said.

Especially now that Milito has proven he belongs on the World Cup field just as much as the other three strikers. Statistics tell the story.

Messi led Spain’s La Liga this season with 34 goals and Higuain was second with 27. Tevez scored 23, fourth-best in England’s Premier League. But Milito proved his own firepower with 22 Serie A goals for Inter Milan, second-best in the Italian league.

Recently, he has been in superb form. He scored the game-winner when Inter Milan defeated AS Roma to win the Italian Cup, repeated the feat last weekend when the club clinched the Serie A title, and on Saturday notched two superb goals in the 35th and 70th minutes to bring Inter Milan its first European championship in 45 years.

‘It’s a joy I’ve never experienced,’ Milito, 30, said after the final in Madrid. ‘Incredible. I am so happy for Inter because we wanted this so badly. We are so happy, and it’s a unique sensation.’

Milito will now join the Argentina team in camp, along with Inter Milan teammate Walter Samuel, and then it will be up to Maradona to decide how to get four red-hot forwards onto the field at the same time.

Or, more difficult still, to decide which two to leave on the bench.

For a complete report on Saturday’s Champions League final, please see www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/ later today.

--Grahame L. Jones