SINGAPORE – The Argentina football team’s trip here to play an international friendly against the Lions was greeted with much delight and anticipation when it was first announced in April.

However, many fans were left disappointed last week, when news emerged ahead of the June 13 match that Lionel Messi would be skipping the game to prepare for his wedding at the end of the month.

The Barcelona superstar’s absence, along with that of Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain and Manchester City defender Nicolas Otamendi, were subsequently confirmed by match organisers Unicess Sports Group on Saturday (June 10).

After playing against Brazil in Melbourne on June 9, Messi arrived here with the Argentina squad on Saturday and travelled with the team to the Fullerton Hotel.

However, the 29-year-old then departed for Spain hours later.

The highly-anticipated match at the National Stadium was meant to mark the 125th anniversary of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), and after Unicess further riled fans on Monday by declining to give refunds, further goodwill was lost at the pre-match press conference on Monday night.

The 18-minute long session for the Argentina football team - which featured only head coach Jorge Sampaoli – saw local media being permitted to ask only three questions.

The rest of the press conference was dominated by questions in Spanish from the foreign media contingent.

As there was no translator present, local media were left confused, although a full transcript of the Spanish replies was provided via email afterwards. It is understood that the Argentine Football Association had declined for answers to be translated in real time in order to keep the conference within its stipulated 15min duration.

The session with Singapore head coach V Sundramoorthy - which was held after Sampaoli’s - did not fare any better, as it was cut short abruptly after 51 seconds as the team had already started their training session.

In the earlier conference, Sampaoli fielded questions on Messi and Higuain’s absence calmly.

“They were carrying over a lot of games (from the season just ended), so I think it was the right decision to let them go,” he said.

“It would have been very risky to let them play now.”

While Argentine news reports had said that Messi was skipping the game to prepare for his wedding, subsequent reports and photos that emerged on Monday showed the superstar holidaying in the party island of Ibiza, Spain, with club-mate Luis Suarez, Chelsea FC star Cesc Fabregas, and their families.

Even Sundram agreed that the absence of Messi - who had been heavily featured in promotional materials ahead of the game - absence was a pity for fans.

“We would love to have Messi here because he can fill the stadium,” he said. “I also would love to see him play, but it’s unfortunate because he’s not coming.

“To play Argentina, they (the players) are spirited and I feel they are ready. We are playing against a strong team, (so) we will approach it tactically.

Obviously we want to go out there and entertain, but we must be cautious because they are a world class team.”

Sampaoli’s men, ranked second in the world, will face a 157th-ranked Singapore side reeling from a shock 2-1 loss to Taiwan in the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup qualifiers on Saturday, but the Argentina boss insisted they would not be complacent.

“The team is (feeling) very well after the game against Brazil and we expect a difficult game against Singapore,” he said. “We are expecting to have a team in front that is (eager to) take the opportunity to play against us.

“It’s difficult to say that we will win for sure.

“Due to the big difference between the teams, this is an opportunity for us to put down our ideas and surely the preparation we are taking for this match will show its colours tomorrow, where we will hopefully have a great game to enjoy the great attacking power of the Argentinian attack.”

The match kicks off at the National Stadium on Tuesday at 8pm.