For years, Lionel Messi's name was synonymous with nightmares for Real Madrid.
In recent hours, Miguel Ángel Portugal, a former youth-team coach, scout, and technical secretary at the club, revealed that the Argentine had once been given the opportunity to swap Barcelona for the Santiago Bernabéu. It all dates back to 2001.
Racing Santander and Real Madrid will meet this Sunday in another round of LaLiga. The fixture brings back memories of another era in the competition, one in which it is impossible not to remember Miguel Ángel Portugal. The former youth-team coach, scout, and technical secretary of Los Blancos was the last Racing Santander manager to defeat the Madrid giants in a league match. In an interview with AS, he revealed that Lionel Andrés Messi came much closer to playing at the Santiago Bernabéu than most people realize.
This story begins in 2001. Lionel Messi was already living in Barcelona after leaving Rosario and signing the famous napkin that marked his first commitment to the Catalan club. At the time, the current Inter Miami captain did not yet have a professional contract with a club that already viewed him as the next great dominant force in international football. Delays in drafting his first professional contract with Barcelona could have changed the course of football history forever.
Miguel Ángel Portugal was working for Real Madrid at the time. By then, the name of a certain Lionel Messi had already reached the Spanish capital as a youngster who was breaking all kinds of records in Barcelona's youth academy. The former Racing Santander coach revealed that intermediaries had approached Real Madrid and offered the Argentine the opportunity to join the club's training facilities at Valdebebas. The Spanish giants turned down the possibility out of respect for their eternal rivals.
“Well... There was a moment when it could have happened. In the early 2000s (specifically in 2001), he still didn't have a professional contract with Barça and was taking some time to renew. Someone close to him offered him to Madrid. I don't know whether it was true or not, but the club received information that they could make a move for him. It was a possibility. They didn't want to damage relations with Barça, although there was some contact. Out of respect, I don't think they would have gone through with it,”
Miguel Ángel Portugal revealed when discussing a transfer opportunity that was unknown to most football fans.
Real Madrid never decided to accelerate a potential move for Messi. At the time, the boards of both clubs enjoyed relatively close relations and understood that taking a player from La Masia to Valdebebas would have caused a nationwide scandal. We should remember that just 12 months before this story, Luís Figo had left Camp Nou for the Santiago Bernabéu. The wounds caused by that transfer were still very much alive throughout Spanish football fans.