🇦🇷 What if? How Argentina stopped Messi playing for Spain | OneFootball

The former Argentine national team coach, José Pékerman, revealed one of football's best-kept secrets: the strategy he used to ensure that Lionel Messi wore the Albiceleste jersey and not Spain's. He did so during a recent conference in Buenos Aires, before an audience captivated by the story.

Pékerman began by narrating that the Spanish coaching staff had already set their sights on Messi after a U-17 tournament in Finland, even lamenting not having him on their team. "The Spanish coaching staff told us that if they had that 'kid', they would have won", Pékerman recalled, highlighting the real interest of the Iberian team.

However, time was running against Argentina. "The papers were already ready for him to play the U-20 World Cup for Spain, which would have blocked him, so we had to hurry", explained the former coach. His colleague, Hugo Tocalli, already had the U-20 South American team almost ready, and there was only a month left. They had to act quickly so that, by playing an official youth national team match, the change of sporting nationality would be impossible.

The solution was to find any opponent for a friendly match. "So we looked for any opponent, because if he played a match in the youth team with a national team, he could no longer change", stated Pékerman. This urgency led him to speak with the then president of the AFA, Julio Grondona, to request a lightning debut for Messi.

The key to the maneuver was the condition Pékerman imposed on Grondona: "The opponent could be anyone, I didn't care; the match had to be played at the Argentinos stadium. You can imagine why...". With that final phrase, Pékerman alludes to the stadium named after Diego Armando Maradona, seeking symbolism and history to cement Messi's belonging to the Argentine national team.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.

📸 DANIEL GARCIA - 2006 AFP