Lionel Scaloni remembers the day Lionel Messi couldn’t stop crying from the shame of being sent off on his Argentina debut.
Now, almost 17 years later, the man who will coach the two-time world champions in Qatar, hopes his former team-mate will have a very different reason to burst into tears the week before Christmas. Scaloni was a seasoned full-back playing for Deportivo La Coruna when he won the fifth of seven Argentina caps in a 2-1 victory over Hungary in Budapest in August 2005.
But all eyes were on a little 18-year-old Barcelona genius that day, after Messi was given his debut as a 63rd-minute substitute - only to be sent off two minutes later by German referee Markus Merk for elbowing Hungarian defender Vilmus Vanczak.
