The midfielder Rodrigo De Paul revealed that Lionel Messi promised him to take him to the semifinal of the World Cup in Qatar 2022 after the injury he suffered before the match of the Argentine National Team against the Netherlands in the quarterfinals became known.
The Argentine captain will ask him not to play that match so as not to risk suffering a bigger injury: “I was injured two days before the game, in a small game. I felt something behind me and yes, I had hurt myself. I didn’t break, I had a strain, which is like a grade 1. It was in the last play of training”, recalled the ex-Racing in an interview with Fox Sports.
“I had never injured myself or broken any muscle. When it was over, the coach (Lionel Scaloni) approached me and asked me what happened to me,” explained the flyer and added: “I went to the doctor, I did an ultrasound and in the morning The next day he told me to do an MRI. ‘No MRI, you’re going to see something there.’
In addition, he recalled: “I did it and the doctor answered me: ‘You have 10 days’. I know you are hardheaded, that you want to try but there is an 80 percent chance that you will break and miss the entire World Cup. Muscle has something ‘” and confessed that the doctor told him: “Don’t give the technician any information that could complicate me.”
Faced with this situation, he continued: “In the afternoon I did not go out to train – it was behind closed doors – and it was leaked that I was injured, there was a riot there. Because very few inside knew it for such information to come out.” It was at that moment that Messi asked him not to play and to take care of himself.
“‘I promise you that I’m going to take you to the semifinals, don’t risk it, you’ll most likely be left out’. For him to tell me like that… is strong. I didn’t want to go against Messi, he didn’t tell me from the side captain but as an older brother”, he pointed out despite the fact that I was a starter in that match.
“When a doctor tells you that there is an 80 percent chance that you will break, you break. But I decided with my heart. If I broke, I decided. I was not going to regret it. I was going to regret it more in the situation of not risking and that something happens that luckily did not happen, which was to be left out,” he concluded.
