The former Argentine defender Ezequiel Garay considers that the Albiceleste, current world champion, will be “the team to beat” in the 2026 World Cup, that Leo Messi still contributes “a plus” and advises Lionel Scaloni’s team to “enjoy” as he did “from the third game” in Qatar 2022. Garay played for Newell’s Old Boys, Racing de Santander, Real Madrid Benfica, Zenit San Petersburgo and Valencia, in a career that took him 16 years from Argentina to Spain, Portugal and Russia, and to play 32 games with the Argentine team.
Four and a half years after his retirement, the former Argentine center back assures EFE that he misses football “zero” and that he has stopped following it, considering his time as a player “overcome.” Even if he has to choose, he prefers to “watch a paddle game” rather than a soccer game, because he has found “refuge” in this sport. A World Cup winner in 2014, Garay maintains, however, in an interview with Agencia EFE on the occasion of his participation in the Hexagon Cup, that Scaloni’s Argentine team remains the favorite in next summer’s event.
From 1 to 10, do you miss football?
“The truth is, zero. You end up very saturated with football and look for other things to do. At least that was my case. When I stopped playing football I didn’t want to continue being linked to it and I found in padel the refuge I needed and the truth is that I’m very happy.”
You say you hardly watch football anymore?
“I don’t see anything. If they give me the choice to watch a soccer game or a paddle tennis game, I choose a paddle tennis game.”
Including World Cup matches?
“I don’t follow him, I don’t follow him to football. It was already over. I think I already lived what I had to live in that world and now I am in another one that is really incredible.”
Even so, as an Argentine international and because of the way in which the passion for football is lived as a country, how do you see the team facing the next World Cup?
“I don’t follow him at all, but I will watch some games, for sure. They are the brand new champions of the last World Cup and I think they are going to be the team to beat. Wherever Leo Messi is, he is another plus for any team and especially for the Argentine team. Hopefully we can win the two-time world championship.”
As a reference who knows how to read the team, because he was part of it, what improvement would you suggest to Argentina, thinking about the World Cup?
“Let them enjoy themselves as they did from the third game of the last World Cup. Because the first was complicated, the second too, I think Argentina began to enjoy from the third and we saw what it can do, what it can generate and that’s how it won the championship.”
From your experience as a World Cup player in 2014, do you consider that the pressure of arriving as a favorite for the next World Cup weighs or pushes the Argentine National Team?
“For me it is another plus because you have Leo. You have to turn that pressure of having the best player in history into a positive and the truth is that we take it as such and I think that in the World Cup that was achieved as well and now the one that comes they have to take it the same way.”
What type of rival bothers Argentina the most: high pressure, low block or physical duels?
“When they take the ball away from the national team, they suffer. But I think that all the games are going to be difficult because everyone wants to beat Argentina: it is the game of their lives and all the games are going to be very difficult.”
Beyond Messi, what warning cannot be ignored ahead of the World Cup??
“This team is very well coached by Scaloni. He has done a very good job and will know how to hit the right note for this next World Cup.”
