Javier Pastore spoke about his time with the Argentina national team and how he said it was very mistreated.

Pastore spoke in an interview with Relevo about his retirement and being coached by Diego Maradona at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Speaking in the same interview, the 35 year old commented on his time with the Argentina national team. Here is what he had to say:

“My time in the National Team when I was there were not good years, not so much because of the results, but because I did not have the chance to win the championship. It was a very mistreated national team, I was not so much because I was very young, but I had teammates who were mistreated by the press and the people and I suffered more for them than for me.

“I didn’t read the press either, but you get it because of the environment, what people shout at you when you get on the bus, on the field, they send you articles… But all that goes hand in hand with being an elite footballer.”

Javier Pastore spoke about being coached by Diego Maradona and playing at the 2010 World Cup with the Argentina national team.

Pastore was first called up to the Argentina national team by Diego Maradona. With Maradona as coach, he would play at the 2010 World Cup with the Argentina national team. The Argentine spoke in an interview with Relevo and hinted that he will retire from football and in the same interview, spoke about Maradona. Here is what he had to say:

“You learn everything from Diego. He was a person who taught you all the time, you would sit with him to watch a training session and he would tell you how to move, he would explain to you what he does, this is why he does it, the interpretation he had of fútbol was so great that he saw everything before, he knew when the defender was going to fail, before making a control or before the ball reached you, he already knew what was going to happen.

“Few have it, just like Messi, they go ten steps ahead of the rest. Sometimes I play with my second-string friends and they tell me how you saw it or thought before, but when you play with Messi, that makes a big difference because they mark the game very differently from the masses. Maradona’s human sensibility was also different from everyone else, I have not found a player who transmits as much as him, he generated things in me that no one in soccer has ever provoked in me. Just watching him made you want to do everything right. He talked to me a lot about Italy, what you eat, how you have to behave, how to be with people from the south, from the north… He gave me so much advice.”

He was also asked why Maradona called him the “misbehaved one of football”:

“He made me play the first game in the World Cup, I came in for 20 minutes and made several nice plays at 19 years old and he told me that because I do what I want with whoever I want. Any Italian calls me the disrespectful of footbal, ‘il maleducato dil calcio’. What Diego said was the law.”

Javier Pastore has hinted that he will retire before the end of June 2025.

Pastore’s last match was in May 2023 with Qatar SC and the 35 year old has attributed that due to fitness issues. Speaking in an interview with Relevo, here is what he had to say:

“My body couldn’t take it anymore. The hip injury was very hard and limited my ability to play fútbol. Fútbol was leaving me and my head was losing strength because it was unbearable. We left each other.

“Fútbol has changed. It’s much more physical, less technical and it’s not the best conditions for my style of play. In the last few years I wasn’t 100% physically and the dialogues with the coaches were about having to run more and be faster.

“They no longer think so much about the importance of a player in the development of a game, in giving a good pass, an assist, making others play or scoring a goal. The first thing is to run a lot and be big. After that, if you play well and think, the better.

“I’m not an athlete and I’m not going to be able to train to achieve that. What makes me happy is to play ball, not to run 20 km per game.”

With the Argentina national team, Pastore took part in the 2010 World Cup, the 2011 Copa America, the 2015 Copa America and the 2016 Copa America. He started his career with Talleres before making the jump over to Huracán.

After Huracán, he would go on to join Palermo in Europe, becoming one of the best young players in the world. He would move to Paris Saint-Germain, spending seven years at the club before joining AS Roma. He would go on to join Elche before playing for Qatar SC.