Lionel Messi, world football legend and current World Cup winner, was at the center of an intense dispute between two federations in the early 2000s. Spain and Argentina tried to secure the young striker when he joined Barcelona’s youth teams at the age of 13, demonstrating a technical quality far superior to other athletes his age. This behind-the-scenes battle is the central theme of the documentary “Messi, the Forgotten Tape”, a production lasting just over 20 minutes that premiered this Tuesday on the premium plan of the Disney+ platform.
The documentary retells the story in detail from a VHS recording with an old interview with the player and presents testimonies from central characters involved in the negotiations between the two national confederations.
In one of the excerpts, the young man responds extremely shyly when asked by a reporter about his childhood nickname.
The central focus of the dispute was to secure the athlete for the youth teams. Businessman Horacio Gaggioli, who managed the player’s career between 2001 and 2005, revealed that he had asked journalist Jaume Marcet for a recording of the young man’s plays to send to the managers in Buenos Aires, as the Argentine Football Association’s technical committee did not know the Rosario striker.
The Argentine federation was completely unaware of the existence of the young talent. On the other hand, Spanish professionals were already following and admiring the athlete’s performance on the Catalan lawns, wishing for his immediate incorporation into the European squad. Jaume Marcet, a professional who worked for more than two decades on the Spanish club’s official broadcaster focusing on youth, declared that he had never seen a player with that boy’s characteristics.
The strategy outlined by the Royal Spanish Football Federation consisted of using the proximity of coaches and base athletes to convince young people to become naturalized, also taking advantage of the friendly relationship between the presidents of the entities. Ginés Meléndez, director of Spain’s youth categories from 2001 to 2023, jokingly stated that the only remaining alternative at the time would be to kidnap the athlete to guarantee his stay in the Spanish team.
Behind the scenes reveal delivery of recording to Marcelo Bielsa’s assistant
The request for the tape occurred in 2003, motivated by the pressure that Jorge Messi was under from Spanish directors to accept his son’s naturalization. During a visit by Argentina’s main delegation to Barcelona, Horacio Gaggioli went to the team’s concentration and handed the material into the hands of Claudio Vivas, who worked as assistant to coach Marcelo Bielsa. The video took two months to reach Hugo Tocalli, responsible for the South American under-17 team.
When watching the few plays contained on the tape, the Argentine commander was impressed, but decided to keep the group that was already concentrated for the U17 World Cup in Finland, leaving the young man out of the list. Spain ended up eliminating Argentina 3-2 in the semifinals of that tournament, with a decisive performance from midfielder Cesc Fàbregas.
On the same night as the elimination, during the official dinner at the hotel, the cook from the Spanish technical committee approached Hugo Tocalli and stated that Argentina would have been champions if they had called up the young man who played for Barcelona. The statement caused a huge surprise to the coach, who realized that even the European staff knew the potential of the young man from Rosário.
The coach reported that the comment was received as a harsh blow and took his sleep that night. When he tried to respond by saying that he knew the player, he ended up being asked by the employee why he hadn’t made the call up earlier.
From August 2004, the Argentine federation began a complex task force to locate the player’s family at a time without easy communication. The process involved consulting telephone directories, the emergency organization of a friendly game and the sending of an official summons by fax, in which the future star’s surname was misspelled as “Mecci”.
