Considering his stay at Newell's over, Messi looked to sign for a new club. One of the big teams that was interested in him was River Plate, and in August of 2000, he made some tryouts with the team.
He was originally scouted by ex-River Plate defender Federico Vairo, who told some people in the club and that's where the interest came from. For three days, he played for River's "pre-novena", and from the beginning, he showed his magic to everyone.
On his first day in the tryouts, a Tuesday, he entered on a Universidad de Buenos Aires field, few meters away from the Monumental. At 3 PM, the first practice started, and at 3:45 PM, he was called in by Eduardo Abrahamian, the coach. It's said that in the first few minutes he entered, he dazzled everyone. He scored an astounding 16 goals in this training. At 5 PM, the coach called Messi's father and cited Messi for the next practice.
On Wednesday, he was cited for the practice at 2 PM, and the practice started at 3 PM. He once again dazzled everyone and was called for a practice on Friday at 5 PM.
Finally, on Friday, he entered the Monumental with his father and his friend Gimnénez. He was paired up with Gonzalo Higuaín for this training, who he later shared teams with once again years later on the national team. At 5 PM, the practice ended, and he returned to Rosario at 6 PM. His friend, Giménez, ended up signing for River Plate.
Despite some attempts by Vairo and Abrahamian to tell the higher-ups to sign Messi, neither Delem (a River Plate icon) nor the other higher-ups took much importance. Although the reasons for not signing him are still being debated, what's true is that he wasn't signed by River Plate, and he ended up signing for Barcelona a few months later.
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