17 years after Lionel Messi’s debut in the national team: red card at 47 seconds and a satisfied premonition

Nobody gave Messi a ball. In the Argentine concentration, Pablo Zabaleta, who a month earlier had been a teammate in the U20 world champion in the Netherlands, was the only one not to part with that boy who speaks little today, 17 years ago he was almost mute. The old guard was part of the ranch, drank coffee and talked about their things. Messi barely left his room but, after much insistence and with the mediation of Cristina Cubero, a Spanish journalist who followed him to Barcelona in the sun and shade, Leo agreed to go down to the lobby for a while. In a corridor, leaning against a wall and playing with the drawstring of his black shorts, he answered in monosyllables without taking his eyes off the floor. Eventually, he gave me a sentence that was the title of the cover Clarione: “We hope to be able to play even for a minute”.

In the last training session, Martín Demichelis injured his right ankle and Pekerman could not prove it, as he would have liked, as a central midfielder. So that August 17, 2005 Argentina went out with Franco; Scaloni, Ayala, Heinze, Sorin; Lucho González, Bernardi, Maxi Rodríguez, D’Alessadro; Lisandro Lopez and Crespo. The boy’s minimal words to the bank. Zabaleta too.

Hungary was a low-intensity team, ideal for testing the national team aiming for the World Cup in Germany. Some players played the call.

At 20 ‘Maxi Rodríguez converts a header, at 25 the giant Torghelle equalized and in the second half, at 16, Heinze scored another header: 2-1 and the ideal moment. Pekerman then gave the alternative to Leo, who arrived with the 18 jersey, the same number as the Youth World Cup, for Lisandro.

He moved to the right, almost like an 8, to receive the ball. He checked and coped, as he would do a thousand times over the next 17 years. The number 3 of the Hungarians, Vilmos Vanczak, stopped like a pole and put him in the jersey. Leo threw the slap to shake him off. German referee Markus Merk called foul. And he took the red one from Leo. It had been 47 seconds since he was admitted.

Your sentence from the note in Clarione He was prescient. Scaloni, Ayala and Sorin chased after Merk. The audience whistled at the German. And Leo, crying, headed for the tunnel, accompanied by Marcelo “Dady” D’Andrea. In the locker room he continued to cry. After dinner he was crying and could barely sleep. Zabaleta talked about it all night. also Peterman. I had no consolation.

The next day he accepted another interview with Cubero, who treated him like a son, and the few Argentine journalists who had gone to Budapest. Messi pouted a couple of times, he managed to smile with some joke of someone who wanted to remove him from that sadness inversely proportional to all the joys that came after. Because as someone said, everything happens.