Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero and Argentina’s Debt to Colombia Coach Jose Pekerman

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: June 23, 2015

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Friday's Copa America quarter-final between Argentina and Colombia will surely bring up some conflicting emotions for Jose Pekerman. The current Colombia boss has history in coaching his home nation, as well as a personal relationship with the vast majority of his opponents in the last eight, including megastars Lionel Messi and Javier Mascherano. 

But his effect on the team goes far deeper than that. To put it simply, the current Argentina squad perhaps would look extremely different if not for the influence and intelligence of the man who will now attempt to dump them out of the competition in Chile. 

The 65-year-old veteran is probably best known in world football for his stint in charge of the nation between 2004 and 2006. That team, led by attacking talents like Hernan Crespo, Juan Roman Riquelme and Carlos Tevez, was a cult favourite thanks to a 6-0 demolition of Serbia in the Germany World Cup—marked, of course, by a goal that needs no introduction—before missing out against the hosts in the quarters. 



Indeed, it is fitting that Albiceleste captain Messi will mark his 101st cap against the very same man who handed him his first, all the way back in 2005. That experience was admittedly a mixed one for La Pulga, sent off minutes after appearing off the bench, but it did not break Pekerman's faith in the teenage star.

A few months later the Barcelona promise was on the way to his first World Cup. 

The pair's relationship, however, went back even further than that abortive debut against Hungary. Perhaps the first sign that Messi was destined to be a world-beater came in the 2005 World Youth Championship, where the star took the competition's Golden Shoe with six goals and propelled Argentina to glory. Pekerman also deserves great credit for his influence; having started his international career with the youth divisions, perhaps no other coach has done as much to enc...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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