MESSI WILL RECONSIDER ARGENTINA RETIREMENT DECISION - MENOTTI

LIONEL MESSI

Ex-Argentina coach Cesar Luis Menotti says he believes Lionel Messi will change his mind and play for his country again.

Messi, 29, announced his retirement from international football after he missed a penalty during a shoot-out defeat to Chile in last month’s Copa America Centenario defeat to Chile, in what was a third consecutive loss in a major final for La Albiceleste. 

The announcement shocked world and Argentine football, with national legend Diego Maradona and the country’s president Mauricio Macri among those calling on Messi to reconsider, and ex-Argentina midfielder Jorge Valdano and Messi’s former Barca teammate Xavi Hernandez sympathising with the pressures on his shoulders.

Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning coach Menotti said in Sport that he understood why Messi might have taken the decision, but he believed that having thought things through he would return to the fold. 

“It is very difficult to give an opinion as Messi said what he said,” Menotti said. “There comes a moment when the motivation to be with the national team is lost, for thousands of reasons I cannot explain. You would have to talk with him. I believe there were many things he had to live through, and then they did not win [the Copa America]. I believe Messi will change his mind.”

The situation is complicated by chaos at the Argentine FA since the death of all powerful but disgraced chief Julio Grondona in 2014.

Recent months have seen ongoing investigations into financial improprieties at various levels in the Argentine game, national coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino resigning, and poor preparation for the upcoming Olympic football tournament.

“I do not remember a situation so chaotic,” Menotti said. “Since I have been involved in football, the presidents were people who loved their club and wanted to help. Then we went into the world of business. I do not want to get into coarse comparisons — but in the U.S. when Al Capone was taken off to prison it was the biggest crisis in the mafia, as everyone wanted to take his place and nobody was capable of doing it.

“Previously things were smoothed over by results. With the huge figure of Maradona too. The only way out of this crisis would have been if Argentina had won [this summer’s Copa America].”