Try to think back to those times: Messi, still then a brunette, had just suffered another heartbreaking loss with Argentina when they lost on penalties in that year’s Copa América, England had voted their way out of the European Union, and a crazed former reality TV star was perilously close to becoming the leader of the free world.
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“A lot of things went through my head the day of the last final and I seriously thought about quitting, but I love this country and this shirt too much”, he said. The Albiceleste are now third in the South American qualifying group behind Uruguay and Ecuador.
“I have no doubt that he wants to rejoin the national team”.
“It is a gift from God to have the best player in the world in a footballing country like ours”, Macri had said in June.
Messi, who is Argentina’s all-time leading scorer with 55 goals in 113 appearances, made reference to federation problems a few days before the Copa final, saying the AFA, Argentine football’s governing body, was “a disaster” after the team suffered delayed flights and experienced problems finding opponents for training games.
It seems like so long ago, when we thought we’d said our final goodbye to Lionel Messi’s global career.
National coach Edgardo Bauza met with Messi in Barcelona this week hoping to convince him to rejoin the squad. Bauza took over the job from Gerardo Martino and was tasked with turning things around ahead of the 2018 World Cup, amid a management crisis at the Argentine Football Association.
As well as June’s defeat to Chile, the reigning Fifa Ballon d’Or also tasted defeat in the 2007 and 2015 Copa America finals, as well as the World Cup final in 2014.
However, in a statement on Friday, Messi explained that he wanted to continue representing his country as he preferred “to help from within”. “Hopefully we’ll give you some joy soon”.
Messi’s only major global honour is Olympic gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
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