The first indication and Pekerman’s “claim”: Messi’s debut with Argentina, told by his coach :: Olé

“If we had lost that beast I would not be living in the country, I would feel hurt. And people killed me, too, ha.” Hugo Tocalli jokes, but he knows he has a point. He speaks almost avoiding imagining the consequences of having lost Lionel Messi two decades ago, the best player of the century then wanted by the Spanish team.

The 76-year-old coach was the first coach to Messi had in the Argentine National Team. The one who sent him onto the pitch 20 years ago at half-time of a friendly match played at the Argentinos stadium against Paraguay. A friendly match that, as the legend of the same goes, It was organized to protect the man who would transform the history of the Albicelestand for all eternity.

“I had seen a video of Messi with five plays that were very good. I was excited by the way he controlled the ball at speed, by the rhythm he had. When we saw it, we started to worry about how to bring it back,” he brings to the present. Tocalli in dialogue with Oléhighlighting the work of Omar Souto, AFA National Team Manager.

“It was hard work and he moved,” said the General Coordinator of the Independiente Youth Teams. Remembering the ant-like work that Souto did, Rosario telephone directory in hand, to locate the family of “Leonardo”, a mistake derived from the nickname Leo. Perhaps, signs of the Da Vinci who was about to dazzle an entire generation.

-How was your first face? face to face with Messi?

-I was upstairs in the National Team’s dining room and they told us that Leo had arrived. I went downstairs, greeted him, explained how we were going to be working, and also confirmed that we were going to give him permission to travel to Rosario to spend the weekend. And on Monday he came back and was focused: it was normal. He was very quiet, very quiet. He listened to what I told him, even in training he was shy, like now.

-In practice they were able to verify what they had seen in the videos.

-When he touched the first ball. That day, when we were working in a small game, you could already see his way of playing, those movements that already excited us at that moment.

-No (interrupts). If you say to me: “Hugo, did you think he was going to become what he was?” And I say no. We did see a good player, very good for the National Team.

-They welcomed him very well: there were good players like Kun Agüero, Pitu Barrientos… Yes, they were surprised, like everyone else, by his speed in the friendlies. By how he scored that first goal against Paraguay.

-Did he do the same in the match?

-The first ball he touched ended up inside the goal, he made five or six more plays, gave two assists. We were very excited. Three days later we played again, but with Uruguay in Colonia, and he also came in and did something similar. And right there I spoke with Jorge, his father, and asked him if he could get Barcelona to loan him to us for the South American Championship in Colombia. And that’s how it all began.

-Do you remember what he did when he caught that first ball?

-Yes, of course: they touch each other, he passes it back, receives it again and starts running towards the inside, passing halfway across the field… He touched the ball, he went for the walls. At half-time I told him I was going to go in and I gave him freedom.

-What was the first instruction that Messi received in that locker room?

-That he doesn’t play in a fixed position and that there was no other indication: that he should show what he knows. And well: when we saw him, that play he made for the goal (the one that made 7-0) was very good… So much so that José Pekerman called me on the phone and said: “I imagine that you’re going to put him in the starting lineup for the next game.”

-You rebelled: against Uruguay he was also a substitute.

-Ha, but it’s because of the trust we have with José. In fact, I explained to him that we were working on it, that we had to take it slowly. In Cologne he entered and scored two goals. We already had an interesting player who would later play in the World Cup in Holland two years younger than those in his category.

-Did you talk to him again after being world champion?

-I ran into him when Maxi Rodríguez said goodbye. After greeting him with a hug, the first thing I did was thank him for everything he gave. Because I am a trainer, I work with young people, and he contributes a lot from his position. He was surprised.

-No, ha. But I explained to him that he does, because of his behavior, because of his way of being on the field, because he never causes problems, nor is he expelled. I told him: “You contribute a lot, maybe you don’t realize it, but for a trainer who asks for behavior, yours is very useful.” Afterwards, we joked: after I made the changes, he told me that in the South American in Colombia he always took it out too, ha. Anyway, before that meeting I was about to talk to him.

-After the Copa America in the United States, when he said he had decided to leave the national team, I asked a collaborator if he could give me Lionel’s contact, although he later reconsidered his position. But I was close to doing it, even with the phone in my hand. I was going to tell him that I couldn’t stop playing with Argentina, that I had to continue beyond the anger, that I was going to get my revenge.

-That situation made you angry.

-Look: in the Copa América that was played here, which was directed by Checho Batista, I went with three friends to Santa Fe to watch the game against Colombia. They screwed Leo so much… I fought so much with that audience that ten minutes before the end I had to go to the car because if not, I would end up in hell.

-You knew the process.

-They said that he did not sing the Anthem, that this, that that. And I knew everything that he had left aside to come play for the National Team. And for them to say that he didn’t feel like doing it, the truth is that it made me swell a little. Luckily all this came, which is a very great revenge, one of satisfaction, and to demonstrate with a Copa América, with a World Cup… Today he plays with ease, he is the Messi that we met in Inferiores.

-When did you see that Messi again?

-At the Copa America in Brazil we saw the Leo we knew, the Leo we wanted: he won the Copa America, he won against Italy, he also won the World Cup in Qatar. And he continues with the same enthusiasm and he infects his teammates with his desire to win. The world has seen it, no one else had any doubts.