The former Argentinian fitness coach revealed the inside story. The "toxic fish tank" Messi experienced was more helpless than Ronaldo.

Trivia! The "poisonous fish tank" Messi once stayed in was much more helpless than Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United. Salorio, the former fitness coach of the Argentine youth team, was asked in a recent podcast interview, "What do you think about Messi that surprised you the most?" Salorio mentioned two past events in his answer. One was that Messi generously distributed the national team bonus equally to every employee and player of the Football Association. The amount was equivalent to giving everyone an apartment. The second is that when the Argentine Football Association was placed under trusteeship, employees did not receive wages for three months. So the supervisor went to Messi and told him: "We haven't received wages for three months." Messi asked "how much", and the supervisor said "I don't know, probably 2 million." Messi immediately replied: "Leave it to me to handle it, give me an hour."

In the end, he did what he said, and the money was quickly transferred to the employees' accounts. Salolio, who was interviewed by the podcast, said bluntly: "Messi advanced his salary and everyone in the training base loves him. It is difficult to find someone like Messi. He has demonstrated leadership with actions." In fact, these remarks not only once again proved how good Messi's character is, but also reflected how chaotic the Argentina team was back then. Wage arrears were considered a trivial matter, and Messi advanced wages for the team more than once. As early as 2014, the media exposed the corruption scandal of the Argentine Football Association, and bizarre incidents followed one after another. In the 2015 Argentine Football Association election, a total of 75 people participated in the vote, but 76 votes were cast, and both candidates received 38 votes. Issues such as debt and corruption have also seriously affected the Argentine team. In addition to the revelation that Messi advanced three months of back wages to the team.

Before the 2018 World Cup, the Argentine Football Association did not hesitate to play warm-up matches with countries in some sensitive areas for money. As a result, the team received a lot of public criticism and even received threats from terrorists. In the end, it had to cancel the warm-up friendly match with Israel. Messi spent millions of dollars to "wipe the management's butt". In addition, in order to save money during the 2016 America's Cup, cheap red-eye flights were specially selected, which resulted in the players suffering for 9 hours. On the eve of the finals, dinner was postponed for four hours, leaving the whole team hungry. The chaotic management also made the coaching selection work in chaos. After the 2014 World Cup, they had to go through the pain of coaching changes almost every year. However, problems were exposed soon after Sampaoli took office in 2017. His tactical philosophy was at odds with Messi and other generals, and the conflicts in the locker room gradually evolved into irreconcilable. However, in order to save a huge termination fee, he was forced to lead the 18th World Cup, and the team was eliminated early.

"Ole" once described the Argentine Football Association during that period as "rotten to the core"! Such a chaotic situation forced Messi to take the main blame. At that time, many Argentine fans and media pointed the finger at Messi, accusing him of having no leadership and being a cancer in the locker room. Therefore, compared with Ronaldo at Manchester United, Messi was really helpless in the poisonous fish tank of the Argentina national team at that time. After all, he could not leave through transfer. But the darker and deeper it is, the more it highlights the dazzling brilliance of winning three consecutive competitions!