Lautaro Martínez has revealed that Lionel Messi tried to convince him to join FC Barcelona when the latter was the Catalan giants’ captain. Martínez remains at the club he was at at the time, Inter Milan.
The two know each other well from their time in the Argentine national team. For a few transfer windows, Martínez was Barcelona’s #1 transfer target, although they could never quite convince Inter to let him go.
In those days, Messi would phone up his compatriot and try to see if he would be joining him at club level too.