Argentina’s assistant coach and former midfield maestro Pablo Aimar has run out of ways to be surprised by Lionel Messi — and that, he says, is exactly the point.
“Messi has made us expect the unexpected,” Aimar said of their star forward, a line that doubles as a job description for Argentina’s coaching staff these days. After a hat-trick on the opening night of the 2026 World Cup, in a 3-0 win against Algeria that set the tone for the campaign, it is hard to argue with him.
Aimar, Lionel Scaloni’s assistant and a former River Plate and Valencia playmaker, has had a closer view of that unpredictability than almost anyone outside the squad. He has watched Messi up close since joining the coaching staff in 2018, tracking a player who, by time, should be slowing down but instead keeps finding new ways to decide matches.
“We’re delighted to have got off to a good start,” Aimar said in an interview with FIFA website. “We’re feeling calm — but not too calm — because you can never be completely at peace. There is the satisfaction of a good performance and the reassurance of having a top-class player.”
That reassurance has a long history behind it. At 12 or 13, Messi was a Newell’s Old Boys youth player dreaming of following Aimar, then River Plate’s No10, into the professional game. The pair went on to share a dressing room at the 2006 World Cup and the 2007 Copa America, and later faced each other as opponents when Aimar was at Valencia and Messi was starting out at Barcelona. Now, 25 years after Aimar first wore the shirt Messi grew up admiring, they are again chasing the same trophy from different sides of the touchline.
“The thought that I was Messi’s idol makes me so proud,” Aimar said. “I once read that Zinedine Zidane had said something similar about Enzo Francescoli, and I thought, ‘How must he feel knowing that such a brilliant player speaks so highly of him?’ To hear Messi say it fills me with pride.”
But for Aimar, the unexpected is not just about moments of magic. It is about a player still delivering them in matches that matter most. “What Messi does is difficult to replicate,” he said, “but it is even trickier to do it in matches under pressure.”
That capacity to keep surprising under the highest stakes has underpinned Argentina’s recent run of success. Since Scaloni’s arrival, the team has ended a 28-year wait for a major title, winning the 2021 Copa America and adding further silverware since. Aimar, who also oversees Argentina’s youth teams, sees that consistency as a mindset as much as a talent.
“After spending several years with Argentina, everyone feels that this is where we want to be,” he said. “That commitment and that mindset have been rewarded with titles. I don’t know if there’s anything better than that. It makes us unbelievably happy.”
With group games against Austria and Jordan still to come, Aimar is wary of letting the surprises distract from the bigger picture — on and off the pitch. “What matters most to us is that things go well on the pitch,” he said. “But the journey is important too, because football can define you, one way or another. If you don’t enjoy that time, you’ve wasted 40 days of your life.”
He also credited Scaloni, a team-mate under Jose Pekerman in Argentina’s successful youth sides of the 1990s, for building an environment where that unpredictability can thrive. “He has put together a fantastic team and a group of people who share the same vision, which is very difficult to achieve,” Aimar said. “He radiates confidence and calm.”
