WHEN LIONEL MESSI ALMOST LEFT BARCELONA FOR ESPANOYL.

Lionel Messi was a 18 eighteen year old fringe player in the year 2004/2005, Lionel Messi had played his first few games for Barcelona. But he was clearly told by the then Argentinean coach Jose Peckerman that Lionel Messi should play at least a total of 20 twenty games for Barcelona in a year, to then make it the Argentinean team for the World Cup in Germany 2006. Now this is what Mauricio Pochettino , had to say, as he had played for Argentina in the 1998 world cup in France, and was then playing in Spain with Espanyol. Now in the year 2005 Lionel Messi did not have a Spanish citizenship so he was considered a non EUROPEAN UNION player. According to the U.E.F.A rules a club can only have three non E.U. players in their team, Barcelona already had Yaya Touré Ivory Coast, Samuel Eto'o Cameroon, Rafael Marcus Mexico Lionel Messi Argentina and Ronaldinho Brazil. So in fact Lionel Messi had put a loan application to Barcelona so he could join p with his friend fellow Argentinean defender who won the under 20 world cup Paulo Zabelata . It was 24/8/2005 and Barcelona were playing Juventus in the annual Joan Camper trophy, now Juventus had Fabio Capello as their manager, and players like Fabio Canavero, Patrick Vieira, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Giorgio Chiellini and Alexander del Piero. But in the match the star was Lionel Messi who did Johan Cruyff turn and fooled Fabio Canavero. he even embarrassed a vastly experienced and stronger Patrick Vieira. Fabio Capello had to say this after the match[ I have never seen a eighteen year old footballer who was so talented today he wriggled his way from five Juventus players.] In fact Fabio Capello even asked Franck Raijkard if Juventus could sign up Lionel Messi. But as the NOU CAMP filled the capacity were chanting the name of Lionel Messi for the very first time. The following year Pep Guardiola took over as the manager of Barcelona and both yaya Touré and Ronaldinho were sold and Lionel Messi solved the three non European Union problem. But Mauricio Pochettino says Lionel Messi came so very close t5o sign up for Espanyol, and if he did it would have been one of the greatest tragedy in football history , his world records would not be standing today.