Javier Pastore on Argentina's World Cup Journey and Enzo Fernández
Javier Pastore leans back, smiles, and talks about a World Cup he no longer plays in but still feels in his bones.
The former PSG maestro, now better known as Enzo Fernández’s legal representative, is in Miami at an AFA event, watching Argentina chase another star on the shirt and quietly steering the future of one of its key midfielders.
A World Cup that bites back
“I’m watching a very competitive World Cup,” Pastore says, and you can hear both surprise and approval in the choice of words. This is not a tournament of easy giants and disposable underdogs. It’s one where teams that arrived with little noise are refusing to go quietly.
He talks about full stadiums, about atmosphere, about being there for every Argentina match. Above all, he talks about satisfaction.
“I’ve experienced all of Argentina’s matches, and I’m very happy with everything I’ve seen from the team.” No caveats. No doubts. Just the calm conviction of someone who has shared a dressing room with Lionel Messi and knows what a functioning Argentina looks like.
Spain, France… and the dream of a final
The conversation drifts naturally to the possible climax. Spain. Argentina. Two football cultures Pastore knows well, two nations that shape his life.
A Spain–Argentina final? He doesn’t hesitate.
“It would be a nice opponent,” he says, before sharpening the thought. “I think France and Spain are the toughest opponents we could end up facing in a final, so let’s hope we can make it there, because that’s the most important thing.”
The ambition is clear. First, reach the final. Then deal with whoever is waiting there, whether it’s the reigning world champions or the most technically polished side in the tournament.
Enzo Fernández, the chameleon in midfield
Pastore’s role now is different. No longer the elegant No. 10 threading passes between the lines, he is the man behind one of Argentina’s most important modern midfielders.
Enzo Fernández is having the kind of World Cup that changes careers. Pastore, who represents him, sees a player thriving in the pressure.
“He is well, very positive, he is having a very good World Cup,” he says. “In the first two matches he helped the team win comfortably.”
The key, in Pastore’s eyes, is Enzo’s evolution. This is not a static holding midfielder or a fixed No. 8. This is a player who has shifted his game and his starting position several times in a short span of years.
“Enzo has changed his position a great deal in recent years. He has played much deeper or as a midfielder getting into the box,” Pastore explains. With the national team, that versatility becomes a weapon.
“Here with the national team he starts deep, but in the end he is the only midfielder who gets up to the attacking line and stays close to Messi. He is a player who adapts very well to any type of position.”
In a side built around Messi’s genius, Enzo is the one who dares to step into the same horizontal line, arriving from deep, closing spaces, opening others. It’s a role that requires both discipline and personality. Pastore sees both.
Chelsea now, questions about tomorrow
With that level of performance, the club questions are inevitable. Enzo is at Chelsea, but the noise around his future has not gone away. Real Madrid’s name, as always, hovers over any elite midfielder who shines in a major tournament.
Asked directly if he sees Enzo at Real Madrid, Pastore draws a clear boundary around the present.
“Today the player is calmly thinking about the national team, he is playing in a World Cup, he is very close to reaching the round of 16... He is only thinking about that,” he says.
Then he opens the door just a fraction.
“We are looking at possibilities to leave Chelsea, but there is nothing firm or confirmed at any club.”
No negotiations to announce, no agreements to reveal. Just a simple truth: the future is being studied, and Stamford Bridge is no longer guaranteed to be the long-term home.
Madrid, of course, has already entered the conversation from Enzo’s own side. The midfielder has admitted he likes the club. Pastore doesn’t deny it; he places it in a wider, more human context.
“He has many friends there, and he is very close friends with Julián Álvarez, and in the end, whenever they can spend time together, they are together there,” he explains.
The connection isn’t just football. It’s personal. It’s social. It’s geographical.
“And I also live in Madrid. Every time he traveled, he traveled to see me and to sort out work-related matters, but besides that: who doesn’t like Madrid? I never even played in Madrid... I even live there.”
It’s a city that pulls people in. Players, families, agents, former stars. Whether that pull eventually drags Enzo into a white shirt is a question for another day.
PSG’s new era through a legend’s eyes
Mention PSG and Pastore’s expression changes again. He was there from 2011 to 2018, the early symbol of the Qatari project, the elegant playmaker who helped drag the club into Europe’s elite.
From that vantage point, he looks at the current PSG and sees a machine built to stay on top.
“They have a squad to keep dominating, they are young, they have a lot of ambition to keep winning,” he says. The praise doesn’t stop at the dressing room door.
He points to the man on the touchline as the hinge of this new dominance.
“A coach who has understood the players and the club perfectly at the moment it was in, he has won the Champions League two years in a row, he has truly done incredible things and I think he is going to continue along that path.”
Luis Enrique, in Pastore’s eyes, is not just another big name passing through Paris. He is the architect of a winning culture.
“Luis Enrique is a coach with tremendous ambition and the club has made everything available to him to keep achieving great things.”
The message is blunt: PSG’s window is not closing. It might only just be opening.
Would “El Flaco” fit in today’s PSG?
The last question is thrown at him with a smile: would he play for this PSG? The squad that dominates, the coach who wins, the club that finally cracked Europe?
Pastore doesn’t take long.
“No, not even close,” he replies, laughing.
A line that says as much about the level of the current team as it does about the humility of a player who helped build the road they now walk on.
From Miami, Pastore watches Argentina, guides Enzo, and admires PSG from a distance. The game has moved on, but he remains right in the middle of its most important conversations.
