Luis de la Fuente says he will not man-mark Lionel Messi in the World Cup final, even though the Argentina captain has scored eight times and provided four assists and the Spain coach’s own experience suggests it might not be a bad idea.
In the buildup to Sunday’s final in New Jersey, De la Fuente told the story of the first time he encountered Messi, 22 years ago, when the Argentinian was a 16-year-old coming through at Barcelona, he was the youth-team coach at Sevilla and the under-19 cup draw brought them together in the last 16 in May 2004 at the Miniestadi.
“I’m going to tell you something funny about Messi,” De la Fuente said. “Look, I met Lionel Messi when I was coaching at Sevilla in division de honour [the national under-19 league] and we played a Copa del Rey game against Barcelona. We went to Barcelona. They had spoken very well about a boy called Messi. So, we put a man-marker on him. In the 70th minute it was 0-0. When they gave a yellow card to the player who was marking him, I took him off. And in 15 minutes, Messi scored four goals.”
De la Fuente continued, laughing: “Does that mean we are going to man mark him? No. Does it mean we will pay close attention to him? Yes, but in exactly the same way that they are going to have to pay attention to our players.”
Asked whether Lamine Yamal was the nearest thing that Spain had to Messi, De la Fuente replied: “Lamine has to be Lamine. Messi can never be repeated. He is an extraordinary talent and above all an example for young players in his attitude, his behaviour, the spectacular World Cup he is producing and the age at which he is producing it. It will be a great show between two super teams. It will be a game of talent, brilliance, great play.”
He pushed back against suggestions Argentina might employ dark arts, challenging the image of them as a dirty team. “Please,” he shot back. “I respect everyone’s opinions but no, I do not [accept that portrayal]. I have extraordinary admiration for a team that is Copa América [2021], World Cup, Copa América [2024] and Finalissima champions. No one has done that in history. And they are coached by a friend of mine [Lionel Scaloni]. Admiration, admiration, admiration. We will all use our footballing weapons.”
De la Fuente also dismissed suggestions this final was “all or nothing”. “What is important is to be in the position to win it,” he said. “Let’s enjoy it, play our way, value this. If you said we could play a World Cup final every year and lose, I would sign up for that.”
He said he was afraid of only one thing: the fact that Fifa had made him take a helicopter over from New Jersey to the pre-match events in Manhattan and that he still had to go back again. Nor was he impressed by a bombastic, chaotic Fifa event which Scaloni, visibly irritated, described as “surreal”. During the event, De la Fuente had struggled to speak over the noise of the audience shouting over him and cheering for Messi, who was also on the stage.
after newsletter promotion
“Since I was little, I was taught to be respectful of everyone; we should learn this lesson,” he told the crowd.
