Facundo Buonanotte recalled the piece of advice which Lionel Messi gave to him and Alejandro Garnacho, Brighton and gifting his parents a house.

Buonanotte is back in Argentina and gave an interview with ESPN F12 about his first call up to the Argentina national team and what piece of advice Messi gave to Garnacho and himself. Here is what he had to say:

“In one of the first practices (with Argentina), I was with Ale (Alejandro Garnacho). Messi came and told us not to be shy and that we should do what we know how to do. More than anything, we should enjoy ourselves.”

He also spoke about Messi only playing the first of the two friendly matches in June:

“I would have liked for him to have stayed. I would have liked that they all stay. But well, we know that it’s not possible, that every player has to look out for themselves.”

The 18 year old also spoke about his immediate future:

“My wish is to be at Brighton, have a good pre-season, get more experience, settle down and obviously if you do well at the club, you have a good chance of going to the national team. So that’s the main thing. To be able to play in the qualifiers would be great for me.”

He spoke about gifting a house to his parents:

“One day when I came back from England, the whole family going to get together, there were quiet a lot of us. My grandfather was going to make a locro (a type of stew), which we like so much. My mother was worried about the place, because we were a lot of people and we didn’t have the space.

“I told her ‘don’t worry, ‘ma. I’ll take caer of it. I had to tell her that I rented a house because I wanted it to be a surprise.

“They came, they saw the house, I Told them to get to know it and when they finished seeing it I gave them the key.

“For me, it’s priceless to give them back a little bit of what they gave me in my childhood. They deserve it. These first months they were living with me in England and every now and then some friends came to visit us. We are adapting little by little.”

He commented on not playing at the U20 World Cup:

“I fought hard to be there. I would have loved to be there. What’s more, I talked to the coach, the directors, I talked to every one. I drove them crazy. But well (Brighton) wanted me to go when the World Cup had already started.

“I spoke to Javi (Javier Mascherano) and told him that Brighton’s requirements were that I should go when the World Cup had already started. He told me ‘hey Facu, don’t’. But I’m calm because I tried everything to be there. I still understand the club. They were fighting to enter the Europa League.”