1 There were three months to go before the World Cup when I started training with Professor Dal Monte. Every Monday, I would travel to his clinic in Rome. I had a very specific training routine, and the Argentine national team was my top priority. That’s why when I got to Mexico, I was in amazing shape . . . I could fly down the field!

2 Our last exhibition game was in Barranquilla, and it ended in a tie. But we won a much more important battle that day: we players got together after the match and decided we had to get back to the training camp. At that meeting, the champion team was born.

3 At Club América, Bilardo wouldn’t let us train. One day, I went into the equipment room and asked for a ball. The guys didn’t want to give it to me because they were afraid of what the coach would say. I took the ball anyway and put together a pickup game. We would later run our victory lap around those same fields—all by ourselves.