Before becoming La Pulga (The Flea), Messi was known as Coloradito (Little Redhead). That’s how they still remember him in Rosario. “He had reddish hair. In the end-of-year tournaments, when he was seven or eight, his parents would see him coming and say, ‘Watch out, the redhead, number 10, is playing today.’ You knew you were going to lose or have an extremely difficult time,” recalls Hernán, one of his rivals from back then.
“We were on a team called Estrellas Júniors, and he was on another called Tiro Suizo. We faced each other once in the final, which was a two-legged tie, and we beat them both times 1-0. We only had one shot on goal, and they had 20. They gave us ten bicycles, one for each of us. We sometimes talk about those things in our WhatsApp group,” he says.
The red-haired Messi will turn 39 next week, on June 24, between Argentina’s second and third World Cup matches (against Austria and Jordan). For now, in the early hours of Wednesday morning (3:00 AM, DAZN), he’s set for his opening match against Algeria (Nicolás Tagliafico is the only confirmed absentee).
Since he left Qatar in December 2022 with the World Cup trophy and the black jersey, the biggest question surrounding the Albiceleste has been whether Leo would be available for the 2026 tournament in the United States. Until three months ago, Lionel Scaloni confessed he knew nothing.
During all this time, his every gesture, every word, and above all, every silence has had to be interpreted. Something quite common in his career. During this period, he hinted that he might not make it to another World Cup and that the 2024 Copa América could be a good moment for his farewell, as Ángel Di María had decided, but he never made a definitive statement. At the end of 2025, it was revealed that he had filmed a couple of commercials related to the World Cup, so the mere passage of time fueled the hopes of the nation, which on Monday descended en masse on Kansas City, on the banks of the Missouri River.
“I simply sent him a message,” Scaloni revealed a few days ago, “and he told me he was going to wait for the list to see if he was called up. And I replied: ‘You’re called up.’ We all expected him to make an announcement, and in the end, he did what any player would do: wait for the coach to call him up. That gave me peace of mind.” Leo, who avoided speaking at Monday’s pre-match press conference, later explained that “it happened naturally.” “I started feeling good and taking it one day at a time. I had the opportunity to play, get into a rhythm, and get some minutes.”
And his first goal will be to become the first player to participate in six World Cups (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022, and 2026). By a single day, he will reach that milestone before Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays tomorrow against Congo. At this stage of their careers, both still have statistical milestones to strive for. Mexican goalkeeper Memo Ochoa, the third player who could achieve this feat in this edition, did not participate in the opening match, and the first to do so would be the Argentine. Even more exclusive, however, is the incentive of equaling, or surpassing, the 16 World Cup goals of Germany’s Miroslav Klose. He currently has 13.
