Nicolás Ferrario was 22 years old and working at an advertising agency in Buenos Aires when he was sent to Rosario to find a player who was still nobody to the general public. It was December 2005, Messi had just made his debut for the senior national team, and the Messi we know today did not even exist yet.
They pulled him away from a family barbecue on a Sunday at noon. Everything was improvised: they even put him in the wrong jersey, and his mother had to go get the right one. While they waited, Ferrario offered him a hot dog because he had not eaten anything, and then he blurted out a line that sounded like a joke between two guys talking about soccer: “The day you become world champion, I’m going to tell everyone I bought you a hot dog”… and 21 years later, he made good on it.
The photos from that meeting were kept hidden for 21 years. Only six of Ferrario’s friends knew the story and were forbidden from telling it. Only now, with Messi as world champion, can the promise be fulfilled.
