{"id":118052,"date":"2026-05-07T21:45:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T01:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/messi-documentary-reveals-argentina-vs-spain-choice-untold-story\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T21:45:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T01:45:41","slug":"messi-documentary-reveals-argentina-vs-spain-choice-untold-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/nationals\/messi-documentary-reveals-argentina-vs-spain-choice-untold-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi: Documentary Reveals Argentina vs. Spain Choice, Untold Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>ESPN premieres documentary on Messi&#8217;s choice for Argentina<\/h2>\n\nThis Sunday, the sports network will premiere a documentary that promises to reveal unpublished details about the process that led Lionel Messi to represent Argentina in international football.\n\nThe production, titled &#8220;Messi: The Forgotten Tape&#8221;, will explore the crucial moment that defined the sporting future of the Argentine star and changed the history of world football.\n\nThe documentary focuses on the year 2004, when Messi, at 16, was excelling in the lower categories of FC Barcelona and was in the process of obtaining Spanish nationality. This would open up the possibility of him playing for the Spanish national team.\n\nThe narrative recounts how a journalist from Bar\u00e7a TV compiled the best plays of the young footballer on a VHS tape and gave it to an assistant coach of the Argentine national team. This event occurred at a time when the internet did not have its current reach.\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>That tape was key for the Argentine Football Association to speed up the procedures and quickly organize friendly matches with the aim of securing Messi for the albiceleste before Spain could officially call him up.<\/p><cite>Statement from the sports network<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\nThe documentary&#8217;s premiere is scheduled for this Sunday at 5:30 PM, Eastern Time. Subsequently, it will be available internationally on Disney+.\n\nWith the Argentine national team, Messi has achieved important titles, including the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, the 2021 and 2024 editions of the Copa Am\u00e9rica, and the Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESPN premieres documentary on Messi&#8217;s choice for Argentina This Sunday, the sports network will premiere a documentary that promises to reveal unpublished details about the process that led Lionel Messi to represent Argentina in international football. The production, titled &#8220;Messi: The Forgotten Tape&#8221;, will explore the crucial moment that defined the sporting future of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[997],"tags":[893,2535,2123,1427],"class_list":{"0":"post-118052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nationals","8":"tag-argentina","9":"tag-documentary","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-messi"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}