“Warm up, kid! Don’t you want to play?” Gerardo Salorio shouted at the teenager at half-time. The U20 fitness coach apparently thought Messi looked a little lethargic on the bench as Hugo Tocalli prepared to rotate his troops. “When I spoke to him like that he woke up straight away,” he explained to Anfibia.
“He got that look of a lion that I saw on his face so many times since. And he started to run quicker.” From that rather muted start, Leo soon became a key part of the Albiceleste set-up, scoring six times in the 2005 South American Championship to seal passage to the World Cup.
It is debatable whether he went into that tournament as its biggest attraction. Certainly to local fans at least Sergio Aguero would have been the more recognisable figure. He made his Independiente debut in the Primera Division two years prior at the age of 15 and established himself as a first-team regular when the World Cup arrived. Even Kun himself had no idea who his new team-mate was.
“He was on my right and I was talking about trainers with [Ezequiel] Garay and [Lautaro] Formica. Leo at some point said something about the United States,” Aguero told DeporTV.
“I watched a lot of football, but from Argentina, not Europe. I asked Leo, ‘what was your name?’ ‘Lionel’, he replied and burst out laughing. And I say, ‘what about your last name?’
“’Messi’, he answered. And the others asked me, ‘don’t you know who he is?’ I knew from the news there was a talented kid from Barcelona and I said, ‘this is him’. Then I saw him train and realised just how good he was.
A young Boca Juniors midfielder by the name of Fernando Gago was also impressing in Primera, while Messi had made only a handful of appearances for Frank Rijkaard’s Blaugrana. Elsewhere the world expected brilliant things from the U.S.’s own gem, 16-year-old Fredy Adu, who as fate would have it lined up against Argentina in the opener. Spain’s hopes lay upon the shoulders of teenage Arsenal prodigy Cesc Fabregas.
When Argentina’s debut in the competition came around coach Francisco Ferraro left Messi on the bench in favour of Argentinos Juniors youngster Gustavo Oberman; a decision that has been queried ever since.
“I’ve been asked about this several times and I always say the same thing: the doctor told me Lionel had a muscle ache and it was best for him to play only the second half,” Ferraro told Ole. “He always used to be brilliant in the end but he struggled as a starter; one afternoon we met and Messi told us: ‘I was going to ask to be a substitute, I feel better in the second half.”
Ferraro’s decision seemed to backfire as the U.S. went ahead just before half time through Chad Barrett’s goal. Messi was thrown on at the break and immediately lit up the pitch with his mazy dribbling but there was no way back for the Albiceleste, whose defeat could have been more painful had Adu not erred from the penalty spot against Oscar Ustari.
The lesson had been learned. Messi started the next game, against Egypt, and opened the scoring from close range by converting Pablo Zabaleta’s low cross. Zabaleta wrapped up a 2-0 victory with a goal late on before Neri Cardozo sealed qualification to the last 16 with the solitary strike to down Germany in Argentina’s final group clash.