What would Lionel Messi’s career have been like if he hadn’t started his career at FC Barcelona but at Glasgow Rangers? What is hard to imagine from today’s perspective could have happened a few years ago. Thus, Rangers had a keen interest in luring the now seven-time Ballon d’Or winner to Ibrox Stadium just as the latter was just beginning to gain a foothold in Barca’s first-team.
Messi in the Rangers jersey may seem like a story Football Manager sound – and has something to do with it in the remotest sense, because the son of the then Rangers coach Alex McLeish (63) once drew his attention to the Argentine youth player. Jon McLeish had seen the 13-year-old Messi in one of his computer games and was supposed to tell his father, who was still training Hibernian at the time, about it immediately.
“My son Jon was interested in ‘Championship Manager’,” McLeish explained on Graham Hunter’s podcast in 2017 The Big Interview: “He kept giving me names from South America. They came out of nowhere and he said: ‘Lionel Messi will be the best player in the world’.” He didn’t think about his son’s words at the time, but when Barry Ferguson joined Blackburn Rovers, McLeish was looking for new quality in midfield.
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“We lost a player who would have won the ball at any stadium in the world. We needed that kind of player again,” said McLeish, suddenly recalling the conversation he had had with Jon. So his assistant coach Jan Wouters should get in touch with Henk ten Cate, the assistant to the then Barca coach Frank Rijkaard, and ask about Messi: “We were told that we didn’t stand a chance.”
McLeish reveals how close Rangers came to signing Messi – and Iniesta
But in an excerpt from Graham Hunter’s book ‘Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World’, McLeish revealed how close Rangers really were to signing Messi – and Andres Iniesta. “They talked about loaning Messi out, but ten Cate said Messi was probably too young and frail to benefit from Scottish football,” said McLeish.
He finally made a formal request towards the end of the 2004/05 season, “but Messi played brilliantly at the World Youth Championship and Barcelona were sure they wouldn’t loan him out,” McLeish said. Instead, Rangers were alerted by ten Cate to young Iniesta, who was also still awaiting his breakthrough at FC Barcelona at the time.
In order to enable the midfielder to play regularly, ten Cate wanted to try and help him get loaned to Rangers. Then Iniesta scored a goal in preparation for the coming season, so the club couldn’t loan him out without losing face: “It was a shame that it didn’t work out because I was looking forward to that one of them is coming for a season,” McLeish said.
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