Without fail, Leo would arrive at his grandmother Celia’s house and there, on a small concrete patch in front of the house, would play rondos (toros, or, in English, piggy in the middle) with his brothers Rodrigo and Matías, though in those days it wasn’t called rondos. Or they would play foot tennis. Then his cousins would arrive, Maxi and Emanuel. A third cousin, Bruno, would also be born to Claudio and Marcela, Leo’s aunt and uncle, some years later.
Two rocks served as goalposts. The first to score six goals. So the game began.
Leo’s grandmother and her daughters, Celia and Marcela, busied themselves in the kitchen preparing pasta with a rich sauce. The husbands, Jorge and Claudio, and his grandfather, Antonio, chatted animatedly on the sofa in the small, narrow, dining room, or on the doorstep, ears and eyes ever alert for the children at play. Look at that touch, notice how Emanuel dribbles with the ball, Leo as small as he is and how difficult it is to get the ball off him …
‘Good, Maxi, good, shouted Jorge, who had played in the lower ranks of Newell’s Old Boys until called up for military service.
Time to eat! The children drifted in, hungry but reluctant to leave the game.
Hands had to be washed before everyone sat around the table of that humble two-bedroom house that no one ever wanted to leave, and that served as a meeting point for hundreds of Sundays for brothers-in-law Claudio and Jorge, sisters Celia and Marcela, and for the cousins who always wanted to play football. Sometimes the sofa doubled as a bed for one of the grandchildren, whichever one insisted on staying over on that particular day. They adored their grandmother Celia and it wasn’t just because of the delicious pasta, or the rice, every scrap of which was finished off. Celia was one of those grandmothers who could never say no to her grandchildren.
Food was eaten in a rush. Everything was delicious, but with the ball tucked under an arm, the five youngsters, still savouring the taste of dulce de leche (milk candy), headed off to the square in the Bajada part of town.
And it was there that they would finish what they had started, or start another game of first to six. Once more, giving it their all. Four hours non-stop; sometimes more.
There were never uneven games. Sometimes the bigger boys, Rodrigo, born in 1980, Maxi, in 1984, and Matías, in 1982, would challenge the smaller boys, Leo born in 1987 and Emanuel, in 1988, who was a good goalkeeper. The kicks they received were shared evenly, far more rough and tumble than in the younger football matches. Much more. Leo and Emanuel were at the receiving end from the older frustrated ones. Especially Leo. ‘Matías, careful, man!’ Jorge would shout.
And Leo would run around like a headless chicken after the ball, and then, when he got it, he would refuse to let it go. With veins bulging, his face redder than a tomato – that is how his uncle Claudio remembers him. And watch out if he lost. He would start to cry and throw a tantrum, hitting out at anyone who dared try to console him. He had to carry on until he won.
‘Always ending badly, always fighting. Even if we had won, my brother would annoy me because he knew I would get angry. It always ended badly, with me crying and furious.’ So said Leo to the Argentinian magazine El Gráfico.
Often the clashes were between neighbourhoods. The Sunday matches they played in the little square next to grandma’s house were open to anyone. And the Messi/Cuccittini team never lost. Matías explains: ‘At first they didn’t want to play against us because Leo was so small, and so was Emanuel, and they ended up congratulating him. Leo was nine years old and he was playing against eighteen- and nineteen-year-old kids and they couldn’t stop him.’
Is it any wonder that at least a couple of footballers emerged from this rich mix of talent?
Rodrigo was signed by the Newell’s younger section at the age of 11, having previously played – as had all the Messis – for Grandoli. He was a central attacker with a great ability to score, fast and skilful. He was selected for his age group for Rosario in intercity meetings. Leo told the story of his brother’s early football retirement in Corriere della Sera: ‘Yes, he was very good. Sadly he had a car accident where he fractured his tibia and fibia, and in those days if something like that happened to you that was the end of your career.’ That, and perhaps he lacked the tenacity needed to become a professional. His passion, he discovered, lay in the kitchen. He wanted to be a chef.
Matías was a defender in Newell’s lower ranks for a year before deciding not to carry on. But he returned to football years later, and his last club was Club Atlético Empalme Central who competed in the Rosario Regional league and where he played until he was 27 years old.
Maximiliano, one metre sixty-five tall, and the eldest of Marcela and Claudio’s three sons, scores regularly for the Brazilian side Esport Clube Vitoria in the Serie A Brazilian championship, having been in Argentina (with San Lorenzo de Almagro), Paraguay, Mexico and also the Brazilian club Flamengo. In his first training session with his first Paraguayan team, Libertad, he fractured his skull. But he is stubborn. And came back to football. The day after the premature birth of his daughter Valentina, who spent her first few days in an incubator, he scored for Fla. The same evening Messi hit a hat trick for Barcelona against Valencia and dedicated the three goals to Valen.
Emanuel, from Rosario, like all of them, inseparable from Leo as a child and with whom he shared time at Grandoli, started as a goalkeeper and spent a year at Newell’s before making the step to Europe. Now he is a left-side midfielder. He arrived in Germany in 2008 to play in the reserves of the TSV 1860 Munich side, and the following year made it into the first team. He was also at Girona in the Spanish second division. Now one metre seventy-seven tall, he plays for Club Olimpia in the Paraguayan first division. One day he would like to play for the Ñuls (as Argentinians refer to Newell’s Old Boys) with Maxi and Leo.
Bruno was born in 1996 and missed out on the early street contests, although he enjoyed many other street matches with other youngsters, and was one of the great prospects from the Rosario-based club Renato Cesarini that produced Fernando Redondo and Santi Solari, the son of one of the club’s founders. He looks and plays very much like Leo: the way he runs, his touch on the ball, even the way he celebrates his goals. But you have to be careful with comparisons. Today in his Twitter and Facebook accounts he writes: ‘Life is not the same without football’ (February 2012). He left it all behind him but now he is trying once again to climb aboard the high-speed train that is football.
Leo left for Barcelona aged just 13 and so the meals he shared with his cousins became less frequent. And the football matches naturally became a thing of the past. The boys were growing up, life was separating them. But some of the child remained in all of them, as it does in all of us.
Celia, Leo’s grandmother, died when he was 10.
A river, the meandering Paraná, the Monumento Nacional a la Bandera, the National Flag Memorial, two great clubs. And its people. Above all, its people. This for the visitor is Rosario.
What sort of place is Rosario?
Rosario is 300 kilometres from the capital Buenos Aires, about three hours via a road that runs arrow-straight, cutting through an enormous valley with little between the two cities. Far from the madding crowd, seemingly isolated, a proud little city (the people are not from the province of Santa Fe, they claim, they are Rosarinos) and their local derby is Lepers vs Scoundrels, Newell’s Old Boys vs Rosario Central, half of the city’s inhabitants plus one against the other half plus one, ‘the most passionate game of all’, according to anyone you ask, even though many prefer to forget that sometimes passions become confused and turn to violence.
Leo is a leproso (leper). Newell’s are referred to as such because a century ago both they and Rosario Central were invited to take part in a charity match in aid of a leprosy clinic. Newell’s accepted, Rosario Central did not. Since that day the NOB rivals have been called canallas (scoundrels).
Arriving from Buenos Aires via the motorway, you have to take the exit to the ring road, a large C flanked on the right by an area
comprising tin shacks boasting the colours of Rosario Central that tell you that you are entering the city of the canallas. This is soon confirmed – as is the very opposite: no, no, ‘this is the city of the leprosos’ you can read on other walls, daubed in the red and black of Newell’s Old Boys. The statistics and the graffiti disagree with each other. These tin shacks, home to so many families on the outskirts of Rosario, have windows with views over the motorway. The areas around here are poor, with dirt floors, where people ride around on motorcycles without crash helmets; old motorcycles, but not vintage ones. Later, the poverty disappears to be replaced by factories and other large buildings. Every driver seems to be admiring the scenery or taking note of something because none of them seem to be paying attention to road signs or markings. Either that, or perhaps as some Argentinians say, traffic signs are put up merely to hinder your progress.
Before you come to the end of the motorway, you begin to see the outline of an attractive city, with skyscrapers of varying size; the road becomes tree-lined and all of a sudden you espy a gigantic modern factory complete with those labyrinthine tubes on the outside that add a strange industrial beauty to the landscape. The plant is fed by the Paraná River, and this is the first sight of this crucial river artery, bringing with it its fertile alluvial soil, an age-old source of wealth. And after the trees and the factory, then you enter the city through a new park before two-storey houses begin to dot the landscape on both sides. The ring road turns into a great avenue flanked by the outline of a city, tall, stately, old.
It was from Rosario, the gateway to the pampas, a village masquerading as a city, that Che Guevara, the singer Fito Páez, the cartoonist and writer Roberto ‘el Negro’ Fontanarrosa and football greats Marcelo Bielsa and César Luis Menotti emerged to challenge the establishment; and where thousands upon thousands of European immigrants landed. And it was also here that other iconic Argentinian symbols were born: here where the blue and white flag of Argentina was hoisted for the first time, created in 1812 to distinguish them from the Spanish troops they were fighting.
On the way to the centre of town is Independence Park, described by the journalist Eduardo van der Kooy as ‘where the city starts to define its own style and personality. From the park starts the elegant Boulevard Orono which looks like a Parisian postcard. Buried in this mass of mature trees and natural foliage is Newell’s stadium.’ The streets become narrow and at the crossroads – of which there are many – you’re never sure who has right of way: it seems to be the first person to get there. The white walls have turned grey and the cafés have high ceilings, large picture windows and small tables. Inside the cafés many of the men pass the time looking at the pretty girls, while the ladies, including the older ones among them, enjoy admiring the physiques of the young guys, all of whom look fit enough to be footballers.
Everyone says that the most beautiful women in Argentina come from Rosario; there’s that irresistible mix of Serbian and Italian genes that combine to create blonde-haired beauties with olive skins and light coloured eyes. The good food contributes to the overall healthy and lustrous complexions of the inhabitants. Rosario is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country, surrounded by fields producing cereals and soya oil. The young grow fit and strong.
There are not many football shirts in evidence, neither those of Central or Newell’s or of the national side, although there are football pitches everywhere, sometimes every two blocks. There are five or six leagues and many of the footballers play in more than one: finish one game, pick up your motorbike and then go and play another in a different league. In Rosario, anyone who isn’t a footballer is an organiser, trainer, referee or whatever. Women included.
‘It’s different from other cities because of its unique passion for football,’ says Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino, former Newell’s manager and now at Barcelona. ‘The area near the city is a conveyor belt of players, a football factory that produces the talents that are central to the objective of Rosario’s footballing dreams. They are what we describe around here as “well-fed” youngsters with an enormous passion for football. That’s why the Rosario academy is so important and has created such great stars as Valdano, Batistuta and an interminable list in which Lionel Messi is the icing on the cake.’
He could also have named Mario Kempes, Abel Baldo, Roberto Sensini, Mauricio Pochettino and many more. Indeed, ten of the regular players in Alejandro Sabella’s squad for the qualifying stages of the 2014 World Cup are from Rosario, including Javier Mascherano, Ever Banega, Ángel di Maria, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Maxi Rodríguez, Ignacio Scocco, Ezequiel Garay … and, of course, Leo.
It was in Rosario that ‘the Church of Maradona’ was formed (half in jest one would imagine), devoted to Diego, whom they consider to be the greatest player in history and in whose honour they have a quasi-religious ceremony every year on 30 October, his birthday, that parodies the Catholic tradition of the country. Maradona had a brief spell at Newell’s in 1993. Leo went to his debut in the black and red shirt.
Football is life in Rosario, and life is football. And to that end the spirit of the city is appropriately reflected in one goal in particular, according to The Guinness Book of Records the most celebrated one in history. It happened on 19 December 1971 in a match played in suffocating heat in Buenos Aires between Newell’s and Central. It was the semi-finals of the National Championship and the only time the two clubs had faced each other in the country’s capital. Neither side was able to find the opposition’s net in a match that was taken up with the battle to win control. Then, 13 minutes from time, there was a foul close to the Newell’s penalty area. Aldo Pedro Poy, the Rosario Central striker, made his way into the area. As he did so he called out to one of the cameramen – what was it? A premonition? A prediction? Call it what you will – ‘Get your cameras ready, this one’s going in.’ And so it happened. Poy, jostling with his marker, before getting away from him, soaring into the air with his body arched, his arms extended. Goal. A flying header. So what if the ball had brushed the stomach of central defender DiRienzo, wrong-footing the goalkeeper. Goal, a definitive one, too: the eternal rival had been knocked out in the semi-finals. Central went on to win the final, the first title the canallas had won in their history, but not as celebrated as Poy’s diving header. The ambitiously titled Organización Canalla for Latin America has for the past three decades met every 19 December on the pitch at the Central stadium: on this day someone crosses the ball and Poy re-enacts his diving header. Lately, however, the problem, as Poy himself says, is not so much making the dive, but ‘getting up again after it’.
This is Rosario. This is football. Messi did not rise out of nothing. Neither did Alfredo Di Stéfano or Diego Armando Maradona. Perhaps it’s not about an Argentinian gene, but one thing for certain is that the three were born in a country where every day football takes you to the bigger glory (the fame, the money) or the smaller one (the recognition of all your neighbours).
But as Martino says in the magazine Panenka, this excellent raw material and passion that is found in the streets of Rosario has to be channelled in one way or another: ‘To this end the work of Jorge Griffa has been vital. A man who, after retiring as player, was quite clear about what he wanted. He had no ambitions to become the manager of a team in the Primera, but rather the creator of players and he never betrayed his original ideas. From the mid-seventies, and for 20 years thereafter, he left an indelible mark on Newell’s Old Boys. Later he went on to become youth coach at Boca, but always with the same idea; to be a forger of players. Griffa has a great talent in this area and a clinical eye for spotting talent. Even to the extent of enlisting assistants. Marcelo Bielsa was one of his assistants in the glory years. He crossed the country from end to end, not just Rosario and the surrounding areas, searching, always searching, for hidden gems. Bielsa travelled thousands of kilometres in his tiny Fiat 147 in this tireless mission that bore so much fruit for the “Leprosos”. His hard work was rewarded. Newell’s were
champions in 1988 with José Yudica and in 1991 and 1992 with Marcelo Bielsa as first team coaches.’ Griffa also spotted the talent of Messi at a crucial moment in what had been, till then, a brief footballing career.
You breathe football everywhere in Rosario, but, curiously, the air doesn’t smell of Messi. There are hardly any photos, or pictures, nor even advertisements depicting Leo. Everybody has a story about ‘the Flea’ but the Santaferina city does not seem to want to gloat. It’s almost as if it is considered vulgar to have his face posted everywhere. Or perhaps they have just decided to respect his low profile.
But for Leo, Rosario is everything. When you ask him what his favourite memories are, he is in no doubt. ‘My home, my neighbourhood, where I was born.’
The Messis lived for decades in a small house on the Calle Lavalleja, located in a suburb some four kilometres south-east of the centre of Rosario, known by some as La Bajada or Las Heras. To others it remains nameless; it is just home. It is a typical low-rise community where front doors are left ajar. Cumbia music, chatter and laughter emanate from within. Kids play in the streets. Traffic is rare. Time seems to stand still in Bajada. In this sleepy working-class area, at number 525 on the narrow Calle Estado de Israel, is the house Jorge Messi built with his own hands.
His father, Eusebio, was a builder by profession and Jorge quickly learned to do everything. The two Messis used the weekends to lay brick upon brick on a 300-square-metre plot of land bought by the family. It was at that time single-storey, a similar size to all the other houses in the street, with a backyard to play in. One wall faced the house of Cintia Arellano, who was the same age as Leo and his best friend. Today the road surface has been improved, as has the street lighting and the drains. The house has a second floor, a fence (the only one in the street) and a security camera, but almost always remains closed.
This is where Jorge Messi, Celia Cuccittini and their four children lived in the early years. It was, remembers Leo in Corriere della Sera, ‘Small. A kitchen, living room, two bedrooms. In one bedroom my mum and dad slept and in the other me and my brothers.’
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