Spain landed in Brazil to a media storm unlike anything Lorenzo had experienced at club level.
World Cup brought a different scale of chaos altogether. The airport in Salvador was surrounded by press from every continent, and the moment the Spanish squad emerged, the cameras and microphones descended in a wall of noise and flashing light. Del strolled right through the middle of it with his hands tucked into his pockets. The veterans followed closely behind him, Lorenzo, in the middle of the group, kept his eyes forward and his expression neutral.
Most of the shouts echoing through the hall were the standard tournament questions. How was the squad morale. Whether Spain could defend its title, and how they planned to handle the midday humidity.
Then came the voices aimed directly at Lorenzo, and the tone turned sharp.
A small pack of South American journalists had positioned themselves right against the metal guardrail near the exit, and as Lorenzo passed, they called out to him in the Spanish of Buenos Aires.
"Lorenzo! Do you regret turning your back on Argentina?"
"Lorenzo! Messi is here too. Are you afraid to face the country you abandoned?"
"Lorenzo! What do you say to the Argentine children who feel betrayed by you?"
He kept walking at an even pace, never turning his head or blinking at the glare of the flashes. The photographers caught plenty of shots, but all they got was a teenager staring straight ahead, refusing to bite on the bait. Still, the barbed questions hung in the thick air, and within minutes, the clip was already bouncing across social media networks and Argentine sports broadcasts.
El chico que dijo no. The boy who said no.
The Argentine media had mostly let the topic rest over the spring. When Lorenzo initially picked Spain, the reaction back home had been furious, treated like an outright betrayal by a public that watched a prodigy born in their capital choose a European shirt. But as the domestic season wore on and Lorenzo started breaking scoring records every three days, the outrage slowly gave way to grudging fascination, and the television debates moved on to other things.
Now that the tournament was actually taking place in South America, the old grudge flared right back up, with Argentina and Spain both in Brazil, Lorenzo and Lionel Messi suddenly cast as rival figureheads.
The sports feeds that had gone cold were flooding again. Old family video clips were getting dredged up on morning broadcasts, showing him as a skinny kid kicking a ball around the dusty streets of Parque Patricios, while pundits debated how a boy from Buenos Aires could pull on the red shirt of Spain.
On the team bus, Ramos leaned across the aisle to Lorenzo.
"They're going to keep hammering that button every single day, kid," Ramos told him, keeping his voice relaxed. "Every mixed zone, every open training. The South American press smell blood, and they want to make you the villain of the whole tournament."
Lorenzo stared out through the tinted glass, watching the palm trees and crowded roadside favelas blur past.
"I figured as much," Lorenzo replied, resting his elbow on the windowsill. "It's nothing new."
Ramos watched him for a second. "Tell me honestly, does it get under your skin?"
Lorenzo thought about that a bit before he answered.
"A bit, yeah. I was born there, and my grandfather still lives in the same apartment block, watching every match on his old television that he refuses to change. So it isn't like I forgot where I came from. But Spain took me in when I was twelve, La Masia fed me, and this is where my whole football life actually happened. It wasn't about betraying anybody, it was just picking the place that felt like home. They can scream whatever they want through the fence, but it doesn't change how I play."
Ramos let out a low chuckle, clearly pleased with the response.
"Good. Keep that exact same flat tone when they put a camera in your face and they'll run out of questions by Tuesday." Ramos leaned back against the headrest, closing his eyes. "Welcome to tournament football, kid. The pitch is the same size, there's just twenty times more noise."
That evening, FIFA hosted an official welcoming dinner for the arriving federations at a grand hotel overlooking the bay.
The ballroom was packed with suited officials, delegates, and national squads milling about in their formal tracksuits. Right across the hall, standing in a tight circle of teammates and security, was Leo Messi.
For a brief second, the crowd shifted, and their eyes locked straight across the polished floor.
Messi offered a subtle, measured nod, unlike the casual smiles and grins he usually tossed across the locker room in Barcelona. It felt heavier than that, a quiet acknowledgment between two forwards who had spent the last ten months tearing Europe apart together, but now found themselves standing on opposite sides of the biggest prize in sport.
Lorenzo nodded back, holding the gaze for just a beat.
Neither made a move to cross the room. There was no practical reason to force an awkward conversation in front of fifty flashing camera phones. They had lifted three trophies together only a few weeks earlier, yet here in Brazil, an inevitable clash was waiting if both nations held their nerve. Both understood the reality without needing to exchange a single syllable.
Someone bumped past in a suit, the crowd closed back in, and the moment disappeared into the hum of the banquet.
The opening match sat three days away.
The Netherlands in Salvador. A bitter rematch of the violent 2010 final, facing a Dutch squad that had spent four long years stewing over Andrés Iniesta's extra-time winner.
The noise outside the team hotel was rising by the hour. The press was digging for drama, while Lorenzo was seventy-two hours away from walking out in the red of Spain for his World Cup debut.
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