Victor Vazquez was cheering for his native Spain at the recent World Cup but he still celebrated Argentina’s tournament win.
Vazquez, starting his second go-round with Toronto FC, and Argentine captain Lionel Messi go back a long way — to the celebrated FC Barcelona youth academy where the two were young guns on the Spanish powerhouse’s Class of ‘87 side.
While a knee injury eventually derailed Vazquez’s first-team career with Barca, Messi’s star never stopped climbing. Now with Paris Saint-Germain, the Argentine attacker capped his career by hoisting the World Cup in Qatar.
“I knew it was his last chance to win a World Cup,” Vazquez said Tuesday from San Diego where TFC is holding the first portion of its training camp.