Bayern up against 'The Wall'

Old school. That's what you see, that's what you get. Rock-hewn features that never break into a grin, let alone a smile. Icy blue eyes that just about bore holes in friend and foe alike. A brow that furrows, seemingly emanating intensity. This is Walter Samuel. In fact, this has been Walter Samuel since the age of 17, when he left Newell's Old Boys, the club where he grew up, for Boca Juniors and gained his original nickname, "Uncle Sam".

Why Uncle? Because nobody believed he was a teenager. He looked older, like somebody's slightly scary uncle, the one with the facial tic, the one liable to say: "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" As impenetrable as his steely eyes, the taciturn Samuel developed a fearsome reputation way back in youth football, when he took every goal his team conceded as a personal affront. Perhaps precisely for this reason - because his fellow defenders and goalkeepers were terrified of him - his youth team once went an entire season conceding just four goals.

Prior to moving into defence, he had been a winger, known for flattening opponents. When his coaches told him he needed to improve his heading, he spent hours on the street heading a tennis ball against a wall, time and again. The toughness extended off the pitch, too. When his biological father, the man who had abandoned him at the age of two, tried to make contact when Samuel was in his late teens, he refused to acknowledge his existence. And, in fact, he made sure to legally change his last name from Lujan to Samuel, after the man who had raised him, thereby cutting off all ties to his past.

He arrived at Boca as a key member of the Argentina side that had won the Under 17 World Cup and immediately paid dividends. He won two Clausura titles in his first two full seasons and, in his third, guided them to the Copa Libertadores. By that point, Roma had signed him for ?20million (Dh93m), although they let him stay in Argentina for another season. In his first year with Fabio Capello's Giallorossi, they won a historic league title and he quickly became the bedrock of the defence. He would spend four seasons in the Eternal City, establishing himself as a cult hero. Intensity is the common currency of fans everywhere and Samuel seemed to play as if every moment on the pitch might be his last.

By this stage, he was being hailed by many as the best defender in the world. Which is why Real Madrid shelled out ?25m for his services. The end of the "Galactico Era" was nigh at the Bernabeu; people still believed a "quick fix" could resolve everything. Except defending, even if your name is Walter Samuel, is a team game. And Real's solution seemed to be not to adjust their side one bit, rather they continued to stream forward and expected Samuel to hold everything together on his own at the back.

It worked for a few months, but then, like the rest of the side, Samuel struggled. He became a convenient scapegoat - heck, it is not as if the local press were going to blame Zinedine Zidane, were they? By the end of the season he was put up for sale. When Inter Milan offered ?16m, Real just about bit their hand off. What followed was a string of titles and trophies, though to Samuel, by his own admission, they did not mean much. In 2005-06 Inter were awarded the Italian title, following the Calciopoli scandal which stripped Juventus of the scudetto.

Injuries - a cruciate ligament tear and an ankle fracture - severely limited him over the next three seasons, to the point that he missed more than half of Inter's league starts in each campaign. This summer, having turned 32, there were some suggestions that Jose Mourinho, the Inter coach, might let him go. Instead, the Portuguese manager took him aside on the first day of their training camp and, as he later revealed to Corriere della Sera, told him: "I'm going to wait as long as it takes for you to find your fitness. But once you're ready, I will ride you and you will carry us all the way. That's how much I believe in you."

True to his word, Mourinho stuck Samuel into the starting line-up and, except for the odd niggle, he has remained there all season. He has repaid the faith by rediscovering his form from the turn of the millennium. Together with Lucio, he formed arguably the best defensive partnership in the Champions League. Domestically, Inter won the double. And now only Bayern Munich stand between them and a historic treble.

"I did not really feel as if the other titles were mine," he recently told Sky Italia television. "This year is different. This year I have made my contribution. This is my team. Everything is magnified, everything simply tastes better." You would not argue with that. In fact, you would not argue with anything he says. Because if you did, he might just burn you with those eyes. Or you might find yourself helpless as "The Wall" closes in.

Arjen Robben, Ivica Olic, Thomas Muller ? it is time to be afraid. To be very afraid. sports@thenational.ae