How Argentina prevented Messi from being recruited to play for Spain

It was June 2004, on the eve of the Finnish U17 World Cup, and Argentina had no idea who Lionel Messi was. Spain, on the other hand, followed the steps of the young man from Rosário and dreamed of having him in their youth teams.

One cassette tape, however, began to change. The images of a short and skilled Argentine reached the hands of Claudio Vivas, a former Argentine national team player and assistant to Marcelo Bielsa, then coach of the first team.

Messi for Argentina in 2005 — Photo: Getty Images

– Horacio Gaggioli, Argentinean, from Rosario and who worked as a businessman close to Barcelona, asked to speak to me. I doubted talking to him, but he said he had to deliver some material to Bielsa. He had told me that he had to be an Argentinian, but he didn't tell me his last name. I was lucky that he gave me (the cassette tape) – he told Infobae.

"No (I kept the tape). This VHS ended up at AFA, in Ezeiza. I didn't have the intelligence to make a copy. Unfortunately, I don't have it"

In 2005, Messi scores his first goal for Barcelona in a victory over Albacete

When Vivas showed it to Bielsa, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

– After a game against Japan, I went back and showed it to Bielsa. He asked me to put it at normal speed (laughs). I said it was normal. He (Messi) dribbled, shot and scored.

The images were also seen by Hugo Tocalli, Argentina's youth coach, who no longer had time to call Messi up for the World Cup.

"I was surprised by the speed he went from 0 to 100 in two meters. I was surprised by the way he finished"

Ronaldinho and Messi for Barcelona 2005 — Photo: Denis Doyle/Getty Images

Tocalli, however, knew the urgency in summoning Messi to “arrest him in Argentina”. At that time, FIFA's eligibility rule was different. If he played for Albiceleste, even at the base, Messi would not be able to play for Spain.

– Imagine the desperation of organizing a friendly and calling Messi. Imagine if Messi played for Spain, they would kill me. I would have to go somewhere else to live – commented the former coach in an interview with La Red radio.

Lionel Messi for Barcelona in 004 — Photo: Reproduction / Instagram

The call to Messi was not easy. The AFA had no contact with the player or his family, recalled Omar Souto, an employee of the Argentine national team, in the book “Messi, the (in)complete genius”.

– I left the Ezeiza (AFA) training center and went to a telephone booth. I asked for a phone book on Rosario, that was all we knew about him. I tore out the page with the Messi family numbers, made a random call home to justify my entry into the training center, and went back there to find him. The first relative I located was his grandmother. Lionel's grandmother gave me his uncle's contact information. The uncle gave me his father's contact information. I called the father, introduced myself and said that we wanted to work with his son, with the exception that I had got the name wrong: I had always heard that Leo was the Leonardo family nickname.

Friendly in a hurry

Aware of the Spanish harassment, the AFA hastily organized two friendlies during that period and paid for Messi's tickets, an unusual practice for the association at the time.

The first game was against Paraguay, on a cold winter night at the Argentinos Juniors stadium, the place where Diego Maradona was “born”. The value of the tickets would be donated to a hospital. The referee was called the day before.

Messi celebrates goal for Argentina in a 2004 friendly — Photo: TYC Sports Images

– They called me the day before. They explained why the match would be held. Luckily, I had the famous FIFA scoresheets at home... if there's one thing I regret, it's not having taken a photo of them – referee Gabriel Brazenas lamented to El Grafico.

The expected audience was 500 people. The attraction, everyone knew, was Messi, as announced by reporter Hector Gallo on the TYC Sports channel broadcast.

– There is a presence on the bench who will play in the second half, which is Lionel Messi, a player from Rosario who, at the age of 12, joined Barcelona. He will do the main pre-season with the Catalan team and which has a contractual termination clause of 15 million euros – said the journalist at the beginning of the broadcast.

Messi wore the number 17 shirt and was alongside other young people who, 10 years later, would be runners-up in the world with the star in Brazil: Garay, Zabaleta and Lavezzi. He came on in the second half, replacing Abelairas, and made one of his paintings. He started at speed through the left half, passed two Paraguayans, dribbled past the goalkeeper and scored the seventh goal of the 8-0 rout, defined as a “humiliation” by the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color at the time.

Spanish harassment

After the two friendlies, Lionel Messi was called up for the South American under-20 tournament, in Colombia, at the beginning of 2005. He was second top scorer with five goals scored. In the same year, Messi started on the bench at the World Cup in the Netherlands.

In the second game of the group stage, he became a starter and led Argentina to the title over Nigeria, in a game in which the star scored two goals in the 2-1 victory. It was Spain's dream to have him in that competition.

Messi for Argentina U20 in 2005 — Photo: Getty Images

– In the semi-finals of the U17 World Cup, we played against Spain. We were leading 2-0, but they turned it around with two goals from Césc Fábregas. When I arrived at the hotel, I got up with the dinner staff, and a man called me. Villar, was the president of the Spanish federation. He told me: ‘We offered him (Messi) everything, but he said he wanted to play for the Argentine national team. He was the player we needed – said Tocalli. in an interview with La Red radio.

The Spanish dream did not come true, and Messi was still one of the executioners of the quarter-finals of that U20 Cup, scoring one of the three goals in the 3-1 victory over the European team.

Now, 22 years later, Messi finds Spain again. A country that opened its doors and was the stage for its genius and which, now, is the last step towards becoming even more immortal for Argentina and football.