Before Messi, he was ‘Mecci’ — and Spain was calling. How Argentina secured a legend 22 years ago

Today, everyone knows the name of Lionel Messi. When he first put on an Argentina national team shirt, on this day 22 years ago, even the administrators weren't sure exactly who the kid was.

"I remember he appeared on the list as Mecci, with a double C," Gabriel Brazenas, the referee of the first match Messi played in an Argentina shirt, told TyC Sports this year as part of a documentary put together by the Argentine network. "As time went by, we realized that was an error."

While thousands surely now claim they headed down to Argentinos Juniors' Estadio Diego Armando Maradona that winter June 29, 2004, video shows the game was sparsely attended. The second leg of a pair of U-20 friendly matches against Paraguay, there was little promotion about the game. It aired on Argentine television, but the match was somewhat intentionally under the radar.

"That’s why nobody was there. People didn’t even know Argentina was playing," said Gerardo Salorio, the physical trainer for the U-20 team coached by Hugo Tocalli.

After all, even if you told them the correct name, Messi was not familiar to Argentine soccer fans at the time, having developed in Spain rather than playing for Newell's Old Boys or another club they watched every weekend.

"Messi is an unknown," one of the commentators on the broadcast said shortly after he entered at the halftime break before another rattled off the biographic details now familiar to fans around the world: Born in Rosario, playing in the Barcelona system since he was 12.

But there were plenty in the soccer world who already knew enough about Messi, how he played, what he could do with that left foot and the story of where he was from — plus an idea of where he could be going.

Could Lionel Messi have played for the Spain national team?

While Messi was a mystery to many fans and those around the team that day, there was chatter among people within the game that he could be special.

With Messi in line to acquire a Spanish passport to play in La Liga as a domestic player, the Spanish federation begin to poke around about the chance Messi would represent La Roja at the youth level.

"I was already playing with Barcelona and they sort of hinted to me. It's normal. It was happening with a lot of guys at that time," Messi said this year on the "Miro de Atras" podcast. "While I'm obviously Argentine, I'd gone to Barcelona very young and did a large part of my training there. There was the chance. It could've happened."

Julio Grondona wasn't going to let that happen. The longtime president of the Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, Argentine soccer's governing body, the crafty Grondona wanted to get Messi wearing the blue-and-white Argentina shirt to establish a link and cap-tie Messi, meaning he could only play for Argentina.

The player and his family also wanted to go with Argentina, so when Grondona rustled up a strange home-and-home friendly series with Paraguay, a 17-year-old Messi was happy to suit up for Tocalli's team.

After a 1-1 draw in the first game, Argentina added four goals to an 8-0 win after Messi came in, with the future superstar showing the quality he already had in his left foot by setting up a goal from a free kick and another from the run of play.

Six months later, Messi scored five goals as Argentina finished third in the 2005 South American U-20 Championship (Hugo Rodallega scored 11 as Colombia took the title). A year after the debut against Paraguay, Messi scored six goals to help Argentina win the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship.

The rest is history still being written. While there were a few bumps along the way, Messi is now beloved in Argentina as a national hero.

Messi took Argentina to two Copa América titles, pushed the team to a win at the 2022 World Cup and is the current golden boot leader with six goals in three Argentina wins during the group stage of the 2026 tournament.

Alternate histories may be written about what might have happened were Messi not brought into the Argentina program, whose most important training center in Buenos Aires now bears his name. But the fact is that he came onto the field where Maradona made his name, he excelled and he has been fighting for Argentina for the last 22 years.

"Without a doubt," Salorio said, "there's a before and after in the history of football."