Juan Román Riquelme and Lionel Messi will step on the same pitch together again. It will be at the farewell to 'The last 10' on June 25, nine years after leaving football, when he finally has his well-deserved goodbye game.
Of course the question was mandatory, and at the press conference where he announced his tribute game, everyone was waiting for the answer. Riquelme did not even let the question finish, he interrupted the journalist with a "Messi will be there".
The history of both could not be more linked. On June 24, 1978, Riquelme was born in San Fernando, Buenos Aires, and that same day, but nine years later, the next genius of world soccer came into the world in Rosario. Two mythical Argentine soccer who from their first steps seemed destined to excite for decades a country that sees them as two myths of the ball.
Their first official meeting took place on October 9, 2005, that day the grass of the Monumental stadium witnessed the beginning of an elite society. Messi was only playing his third game with the Argentine team and his first as a starter. Next to him was Riquelme with the 10, that mythical shirt that Lionel was going to put on so many times in the future.
Together they marveled, enjoyed and smiled 27 times, until the now distant October 11, 2008. That day, in the same setting in which they met for the first time, they said goodbye to each other without knowing it, to now meet almost 15 years later. late.
They will do it with the same shirt. The tribute to Riquelme will be a match between Boca and the albiceleste team at La Bombonera, and it will surely be when the illuminated legs of both engineers come together for the last time.
Riquelme has been trying to hold his match for many years, but between the differences with the Boca board, his attempt to run for the presidency and the coronavirus pandemic, he had postponed the game on multiple occasions. And that is why Messi had confirmed his attendance years ago.
"If I'm here and I can, I'm delighted to go. Román deserves a great farewell, which after so long has not been done to him. He deserves it for what he gave to football and to Boca", Messi had said in 2019. In addition, the current vice president Xeneize said that in December of that year Lionel asked him to delay his farewell to be able to be.
"I wanted to say goodbye in December 2019 and Messi called me to tell me not to, that he wasn't coming because he was playing," Riquelme declared at the conference in which he announced his tribute and in which he did not forget the other great either. 10' Argentine. "For me it's also a dream, the greatest player. We were lucky to have him and Maradona. And I was lucky to play with both of them."
The former player, 44 years old and one of the greatest figures in the history of Boca, will have one last performance in front of the public that still holds immense affection for him today. "I don't understand it. I've been a soccer player, it's been nine years (since his last game), and that people want to come to the pitch seems too much to me," he said.
The idol of Boca also spoke of the feeling of stepping on the grass of La Bombonera again. "I have to come to the field as a fan. There are moments that I feel that I would not dare to enter this field. I had to go into the locker room, put on the club's sweatshirt again, it's like going back in time and it seems easy. It's going back to the home garden. I will enjoy it as much as people do."
Riquelme's last official match was on December 7, 2014, wrapped in the colors of Argentinos Juniors. Now, almost nine years later, he's finally saying goodbye. Next to him will be Messi, as in 2005 and as in 2008, to amaze the world, together one last time.
