Messi Refused to Play for Spain and Missed 3 World Cups

SadaNews - Jines Milendez, the former youth coach of the Spanish national team, revealed that Gerard Piqué and Cesc Fabregas tried to convince Lionel Messi during his teenage years to represent Spain instead of Argentina.

In an interview with "AS" newspaper, Milendez explained that Alex Garcia, the youth coach at Barcelona, encouraged him to recruit Messi while the future superstar was making his way through La Masia.

Milendez recalled saying: He always told me: Listen, we need to convince the Argentine to play for Spain.

Messi belonged to the same generation as Piqué and Fabregas, who also tried to persuade their Barcelona teammate to join Spain.

Milendez said: He was from the 1987 generation, the same generation as Gerard Piqué and Cesc Fabregas. I had 8 players from Barcelona on the national team. They helped me talk to him, to try to convince him to play with us.

Milendez made another attempt during the Spain Under-16 Championship when Messi was fourteen, but the young forward never changed his mind.

Milendez admitted: I told him again: Please, you must play with us... but he never wanted to.

Reflecting on what could have been, Milendez said that former Spain coach Vicente del Bosque believed Messi could have made the already dominant Spanish team even more successful.

Milendez revealed that Del Bosque told him: If I could have gotten him to play with us, we would have won one or two or three more World Cup titles.