Héctor Castellanos, glued to Lionel Messi as he did during the 76 minutes he was on the pitch at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. (Photo: Juano Tesone)
The intensity of the work he had to do and the adversity of the result his team reaped didn’t stop Héctor Castellanos from leaving Hard Rock Stadium with a smile. The Honduran midfielder, responsible for scoring Lionel Messi in the 3-0 game won by the Argentine team on Friday, took as a consolation prize the shirt of the footballer who gave him Cain’s on the Miami night.
Castellanos, who made his debut with the Honduran team in June 2019 in the 7-0 defeat to Brazil in Porto Alegre, knew from Monday that in his sixth game with the Catrachos shirt he would have the difficult mission of serving as the football player’s stamp. Paris Saint Germain.
This was announced by his coach, Diego Vázquez of Mendoza, as soon as the squad met for this round of friendlies which will also include a clash with Guatemala on Tuesday in Houston. As the task didn’t seem easy, the 29-year-old midfielder had to do his homework during training days.
“(Vázquez) He gave me a player with excellent ball management, Jhow Benavídez. They showed him videos of Leo’s movements; They taught me how a Girona player had scored him when he was at Barcelona. They made me do those marking moves, I had to follow Jhow and see how he was forming, ”explained Castellanos, nicknamed La Perrita, after the game in Miami.
The midfielder, who has been playing in Motagua for seven years and who has won five league titles with one of the most important teams in the Honduran championship, also revealed how his interaction was on the pitch with the captain of the Argentine team, who immediately understood what it was. its mission.
“Very kind and calm, he said to me: ‘Will you really follow me throughout the game?’ I replied: ‘The truth is, crack’. Leo smiled and said nothing else to me. From time to time he kept looking at me as annoyed, but he didn’t say anything rude to me, “Castellanos said. He added:” It was a mental duel, not a physical one. Sometimes he got offside and made me work twice as much because I had to be careful with him with the center line ”.
After 76 minutes of grueling (and not entirely successful) work, the player born in Tela, on the coast of the Caribbean Sea and 190 kilometers north of Tegucigalpa, was replaced by Joseph Rosales, so he had to follow the last fragment of the I meet from the bank. After the final whistle of the American Rubiel Vázquez, he got his prize.
“At the end of the game we looked each other in the eyes and I was just about to signal him to switch shirts, but he remembered and pointed it out, as he had said yes before. I asked him when he asked me if I would score him for the whole game, ”explained the player that he also runs a cattle farm with his father and grandfather in his hometown. “I got the jersey, so today I won a lot,” he said.
Source: Clarin
