"I'm not recommending this for children," he said. "I had no money, so I hitchhiked from New York to St. Louis. I didn't have enough money for a hotel. So, I slept in the airport. The next day I showed up on the field. I thought I played well. We had a second day of tryouts. I went back to the airport to sleep, showed up the second day. I thought I did extremely well."
He had money for a return trip to New York, but it was too late to catch a flight back. So once again, Messing slept at the airport gate.
The next morning, he bought a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at 5:30 a.m.
"I always turn to the sport page first, and there it was," Messing said. "They had named the Olympic team. I get emotional talking about it now. Sitting there, hadn't showered, hadn't slept, hitchhiked out there. I pick up the paper and saw my name. I made the Olympic team. That was the first step."
Not unlike today's Concacaf qualification process, there were many challenges trying to get results in Barbados, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, ranging from hostile crowds to enduring heat and humidity and dodgy officiating.
The U.S. reached the semifinal round and needed to defeat El Salvador at a neutral site at “The Office” in Kingston, Jamaica in 105-degree heat on Sept. 18, 1971 to advance. Messing found himself center stage during penalty kicks after the teams played to a 1-1 draw.
The tie-breaker was knotted up at 3-3, and Messing needed to find a way to deny El Salvador's Mario Castro.
"I played basketball, football, baseball, so I'm used to the psychology of freezing the guy at the free throw line, or calling a timeout before a guy is going to try and kick a field goal," he said. “That's not new to me. So there in the heat, a maniacal game, it's coming down penalty kicks. It comes down to the fifth shot.
"I had long curly hair. It was hot out. I'm sweating. I took off my shirt. I started spinning it around my head, I charged out at him. The stands were going nuts, the referee was giving me a yellow card. I just stared him in the face. I wanted to him to know he's looking at the craziest guy he's ever seen in his life. I put back on my shirt, went into the goal, and he hit it about 20 yards above the crossbar.
"We advance. If you're a goalkeeper, it's the juxtaposition of being a yogi and a train wreck. You've got to got to be a little bit crazy, but you got to be cool, calm and collected.”
For the first time since 1956, a U.S. soccer team was headed to the Olympics. Messing added that it was the first American soccer side to actually qualify for the Summer Games, as previous entrants had been invited to participate.
"Anybody who's been through a path that I have, we consider ourselves pioneers as the first U.S. team that qualifies," he said. “It was a big deal when I got home, and I was a lifeguard. I went to the swimming pool with my USA Olympic jacket on. If you're in the Olympic Games, representing your country, it's a big deal."
Since Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympics, Germany - then West Germany - was a transformed country and society.
