LIFE GOT A BIT MESSI FOR ME

NATIONAL LEAGUE SOUTH

- Sean Cole

VERY few players can combine a life on the world’s biggest stage with that in the lower league, but Andre Boucaud’s career has been full of contradictions.

If anything, the higher the standard of the opposition, the more he feels at home.

“I was playing in League Two for Dagen ham and then for the Trinidad & Tobago national team, playing in front of guys who were playing all across Europe, in the Champions League, in MLS,” Boucaud, who won 47 international caps for his country, told The NLP.

“That used to bother me, to be honest, but after a while, I just got used to it.”

The summer of 2014 was perhaps the epitome of this stark contrast. In June, Boucaud played against Argentina in a World Cup warm-up match, locking horns with Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano, and Angel Di Maria, among others.

A month later, while Messi & Co took on Germany in the World Cup Final, Boucaud was on trial with Dagenham & Redbridge.

Reputation

“I don’t think I reached where I could have, or I should have,” admits Boucaud, now looking forward to life at Maidstone United in National League South next season.