Surprising revelation about Messi: he had a quarrel with this Argentine legend

Lionel Messi is one of the most important players in the history of the Argentine National Team. He made his debut in the youth teams in June 2004 in a friendly match against Paraguay that the Argentinean Football Association organized precisely for Leo to play and prevent Spain from 'stealing' him. A year later he played for the first time with the senior national team and since then he's always been there.

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Almost 20 years have passed since then and he has broken all records: he is now the player with the most games with Argentina (180) and goals (106). In addition, he has won all the major tournaments: U-20 World Cup in the Netherlands 2005, gold medal at the Beijing Olympics 2008, Copa America 2021 in Brazil, Finalissima against Italy in 2022 and World Cup in Qatar 2022.

However, he was not always the undisputed leader of the team. In his early years, that place belonged to Juan Roman Riquelme. The former Barcelona midfielder was the favorite of Argentina's coaches at the time, first Nestor Pekerman and then Alfio Basile, and wore the number 10 jersey. When the time came to compete at the Beijing 2008, U-23 team manager Sergio Batista decided to call up Riquelme and Messi, in addition to other stars such as Javier Mascherano, Angel Di Maria and Sergio Aguero.

Things went well for them, as they won the tournament showing excellent performances. However, Batista now revealed unknown details of that time. In an interview with Lo Del Turco Beach, the former Argentine coach recalled that team and said: "It was nice. How I enjoyed those Olympics... How well those motherf... played.. I had fun". But then he shocked everyone by saying: "Lionel and Roman, they were at odds with each other at that time. They were coming from the senior national team and they had a conflict".

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Things have changed

Sergio Batista then repeated: "Roman and Lionel didn't get along at the time. Now they do". That means that after more than 15 years they have put their differences behind them. And that was demonstrated last year, when Messi attended Riquelme's farewell match at Boca Juniors' stadium.