Messi

by Guillem Balague

  ‘He would get the ball and the move would finish with a goal. He made the difference even if they kicked him. This is how it is: if you’re small and you play well, they break you.’ So recalls Gonzalo Diaz who played with Leo during the time he was at Grandoli, and naturally won everything.

  Matías Messi finds it easy to put into words those days when he himself had dreams of becoming a footballer. And he, like all the Messis and all the other anonymous spectators, believed they were witnessing something special. ‘Very often there were problems because of this, because he played so well. So well, in fact, that some coaches of the other boys sent their team out to bring him down – if they couldn’t get the ball off him by fair means, they’d get it in other ways. It was something that you had to see to believe. There were even players on the other team who would applaud some of his moves. “What are you doing?” the rival fans would ask.’

  Sometimes it seems that many of those recollections reflect the Lionel Messi of today rather than those of the little boy who played good football; certainly a tireless scorer of goals but, at the time, a footballer of individual brilliance rather than a team player, and there is a big difference. They do not speak of a child, rather of a child who has become the greatest footballer in the world. It isn’t the same thing. It is easy, with hindsight, to idolise those who succeed. And for this reason it’s difficult to find anybody who would dare to add a qualifying ‘but’.

  Anyway, at Grandoli there were many others who showed promise. ‘I have seen several who could have been like Messi but they did not have the perseverance in training,’ says Gonzalo Diaz.

  Ah, perseverance. Without it, you cannot be a footballer.

  Jorge Messi also dreamed of becoming a footballer, but after four years at the NOB academy, just as a player starts to blossom, when the first team beckons, Jorge left to do his military service, and on his return he married. When Jorge was 29, the age when most footballers reach their peak, Leo was born.

  Jorge has always had very fixed ideas, but he teaches by example rather than by word. His philosophy is simple: work hard, be persistent, show humility and you can achieve your goals. Maybe that is why Leo is not seduced by the celebrity culture, is not dazzled by those great names in neon lights. In any case for Jorge, as with the overwhelming majority of the Argentine people of his generation football was the inevitable and irresistible face of Maradona, videos of whom Jorge treasured and played frequently to his sons.

  Leo’s father therefore passed down to his sons an appreciation of the one man who rose above the rest to lead his side, who caressed the ball as he was looking for the next pass, and who had the power in his feet to create a symphony of answers. For Lionel, and for many of his generation, that type of player could be seen in the shape of Pablo Aimar, the ex-River player. Lionel has said many times he did not have any football idols as a kid, but he liked to see Aimar. Is it true that he had no heroes? Don’t we all have some point of reference? When he was asked at the age of 12 to name his idol, he said he had two: ‘My father and my godfather, Claudio.’ In that same interview he confessed he considered humility the greatest of all virtues. Something with which his father would agree.

  Leo, like his brothers, shared his father’s passion for football. Jorge is a reserved man, even a little distant at times, and also a decent central midfielder, as little Leo would see when Dad played games with his workmates at the Acindar factory. He understood football, a game he loved. The Messis came down every weekend to Grandoli to watch Matías and Lionel play, and one day a club director asked Jorge if he would take charge of the kids born in 1987. He thus became Leo’s second coach. ‘We were part of the Alfi league, one of the independent competitions that play in Rosario and the municipality. There were different categories up to 12 years old, and the youngsters always played on a seven-a-side pitch,’ Jorge told Toni Frieros.

  He trained three times a week with simple, individual exercises, always with the ball to improve technique, and the occasional tactical exercise which the youngsters learned quickly, like little sponges, eager and delighted to soak up Jorge’s instructions. Leo never did any specific work, he never spent his afternoons passing the ball with his right foot, or dribbling around stones with his weaker leg. His father never asked him to. He simply played and Jorge endeavoured to respect that free spirit in the weekly training sessions.

  It was 1994. Leo was six years old.

  Jorge Messi’s side never lost a game in his only year as their trainer. ‘We won the league and all the tournaments we entered, even the friendlies. Maybe it’s a bit crude to say this, but the side caused a sensation because of the high standard it reached and in that team Leo shone out like a beacon,’ he has told the Argentinian press. ‘In this team – and I don’t want to overdo it – practically everything that is good he did. The goals, the dangerous situations, the one player who made the difference was him, the one who excelled was him. OK, I’m his father, he is my son, and I’m not saying it for that reason, but because that’s how it was,’ he told the magazine Kicker.

  The journalist interviewing him followed a line of questioning that might seem banal but is none the less fascinating: ‘Lionel, the footballer: who did he take more notice of, Jorge Messi the trainer or the father?’ Jorge answered: ‘He was always very disciplined in his play, always obedient and did what was asked of him. He always took notice of what I said to him as a trainer. Even today he is like this. Like when Frank Rijkaard at Barcelona put him on the right. He always complied with what the coach asked of him, he always played where he asked him to, it didn’t matter who it was. And he never complained. That’s how it always was.’

  ‘In life there are three elements: mission, vision and values,’ adds the prestigious Argentinian sports psychologist Liliana Grabín. ‘The legacy you inherit from a father is the way he walks the path, the values he transmits. Leo carries with him the strong personality of his mother and the calmness, tolerance and forbearance of his father: a strange combination; ying-yang, I suppose. But he also passed onto him humility, self-sacrifice and tenacity.’

  But the son is also the result of his father’s vision. Jorge once said that to hear your name being chanted is the greatest thing that can happen to a human being. If this is your dream, then you pass it on. Jorge had a vision. When he saw Leo play and understood that he had talent, his attitude was that of a proud father who wanted his son to stand out from his peers. A son always wants to please his father, and will always try to continue pleasing him. The vision, the attitude. All this marks the journey. Jorge lit the way: you can be a footballer.

  ‘The family had the values, the vision is the future, and the mission is the playing of football. Jorge had vision, the family had vision. Obviously he had a talent, and the mother and the father had the vision to continue the path that allowed him to explore and develop his talent,’ explains Grabín.

  Afterwards, Jorge, in his role as trainer, adviser and even as manager, helped Leo negotiate the road. A dad and a manager, then. He gave him very little praise in comparison to the universal adulation he received; rather, he gave him perspective. And, when necessary, he reminded him of the values that he considered ideals. At all times he kept his son’s feet firmly on the ground, particularly when it looked as though too much success might distract him and lead him to lose sight of the bigger picture, which would happen, as we shall see.

  Jorge, therefore, has from the start been father, guide, mirror, mentor, counter-balance, Leo’s hero. The man he has to follow, occasionally rebel against, but the one who has to be recognised as his companion along the road. Someone in whom Leo places absolute trust and unshakeable faith.

  It was Jorge who decided that they had reached the end of the road with Grandoli. The whole family went to watch matches involving Matías and Leo, but on one occasion he was unable to pay the two pesos’ admission. He asked them if, just this once, they would waive the admission fee. They said no.

  Leo played that aftern
oon, but it was the last time he wore the Grandoli shirt.

  Teacher Mónica Dómina has her recollections. She had Leo in her class at Las Heras school between the ages of six and eight, in the first, second, third and fourth grade, the first years of primary education.

  ‘… the thing is he was a very quiet boy. Unfortunately you always remember those who misbehave, those who bring you problems. But he was quiet, polite, and sometimes very introverted with feelings that he did not want to show. He was a protected child, because with his classmates like Cintia, they bonded together, they went into the same grade and she was like his mother, she was twice as tall as him because he was very, very small, he looked like a kid in kindergarten. And he had such a cheerful little face … the same as it is now. You feel like hugging him! And back then, even more so. Back then the teacher was like a second mother. It isn’t the same feelings that the teachers have nowadays … yes, these young girls haven’t got the same maternal instinct. We used to do it a different way, I would sit him on my knee, look after him, and now these things don’t happen. And he was one of those who was like a baby, a little baby, you felt like picking him up and sitting him with you and chatting to him.

  ‘He was very easygoing, but he hardly spoke at all. But one thing that I do remember very well: I tried to get him to speak. I did this in the free time and during special lessons when we were doing stuff like drawing. That’s when I had him close to me, but he wouldn’t say anything. Only “yes, no”, he wouldn’t say anything else. But when I asked him questions about stuff in my field, like maths or comprehension, he would answer and that set my mind at ease.

  ‘Generally Leo sat in the first row in the classroom, but he was very shy, and it was difficult for him to take part in class, he did his work but didn’t take his class by storm. He was doing well, doing what work he had to pass tests and always handed work in on time.

  ‘We, the teachers, tried to help him and he did what he could; but it was not that he was incapable. No. It was that he didn’t want to, because he had another interest, all he wanted was the ball.

  ‘He was a normal boy, but not excellent. He was responsible, he did his work as well as he could. He did not study a lot. In the seventh grade he got a good report. The head teacher let a newspaper take a photograph of the book in which the marks were recorded and there you could see all of the marks. He was one of the best in PE, and did well in handiwork and music. In comprehension and mathematics, he did just enough, seven, that was a pass grade, so he was so-so.

  ‘But my first image of him is playing with the football in the schoolyard, taking the ball from way back and dribbling with it. Even though they didn’t always have a ball, sometimes they made one up with whatever they could, like socks that they had stuck together in a ball, or plastic bags, or even with Silly Putty. With whatever they could find they played in the yard.

  ‘But normally there was a ball. The PE teacher had a cupboard they would go to, to fetch it, or sometimes they would bring one from home. They knew if the PE teacher was there or not, and if he wasn’t, some other teacher would look after the ball in between lessons.

  ‘All those years ago, you would lend them a ball. Now you don’t lend them one. Nowadays they use the ball to hit their mate over the head. The number of students in those days didn’t make any difference, we could be 100 but would all get on. They took care of each other. Therefore the boys were allowed to play football.

  ‘All his friends looked upon him as a kind of leader, they put him in the centre of the class photo, they all loved him, loved him. They waited for him, “let’s go and play!” They admired him because he shone. He would run from one side to another and no one could catch him; he was a flea, a toy doll; he enjoyed himself and brought enjoyment to others.

  ‘He never played pranks, but those eyes told you that here was a boy who did as he pleased. I think that the family …I always wanted to ask his mother what he was like at home because he behaved very well at school so as not to lose the chance of playing football. Because in the classroom he was very quiet, but when the bell went he would run outside with everyone following behind him.

  ‘You could see them all in the large multi-purpose room, with the two goals and all those youngsters desperate to play. Playtime was a football championship.

  ‘Before, classes went like this: 40 minutes, a playtime of 15 minutes, 40 minutes, a playtime. But now lessons last one hour, and then a 15-minute break. They would play in that long break. That’s when they would have time to play. They were like mini-matches, maybe they would play the first half in the first break and the other half in the second break.

  ‘So he would go out for that quarter of an hour along with the other boys and he was like another person and even if it was seven against seven, or all against all, he would get the ball and his game consisted of taking them all up and down the pitch. Because this wasn’t about playing football, it was about dribbling … He was already practising in … what do you call it? … a small football school. And so many of the children that were with him were also in football schools.

  ‘I always said that when his mother came with all his trophies and stopped at the classroom door, proud as any mother would be, he did not want his mother to come in, he didn’t want to talk about what he had done. Or, rather, from an early age, he didn’t want to show that side of himself, he played because he liked playing, he had passion, just like now … He wasn’t going to show that he was the best because it was something he had inside. He always wanted to be treated just like any other boy, he did not want to stand out. And now he is exactly the same.

  ‘An angel. But an angel as a person. I always meet his mother at the supermarket nearby, because his mother doesn’t go around the city saying, “I am Messi’s mother.” She goes around like any other woman, modestly dressed, nothing vain, because I know the mothers of other footballers, and well, some are full of “I aaaammmmm the moooother off” … She is a lady, uncomplicated and good, and so is he. He doesn’t go around telling people, “I have so many millions” … no. He lives his simple life, as simply as possible, I suppose. Because that’s how he was. Neither did he go around boasting about whether he scored a lot of goals or whether he hadn’t, because there are many boys that would say, “Did you see that, Miss? Me, me …” but him, nothing of the sort. The family, the mother, that’s how they showed him and that’s how they gave him the house rules, and that’s why at school he was very quiet, very introverted.

  Little Leo did not have to walk far to his school at Las Heras. As soon as he hit the street with the ball glued to his feet, he headed for the wall that surrounded the army barracks, and crossed the fields before coming out into Buenos Aires Street, just where it meets Juan Hernández Square. The little school, painted white, with touches of green, with its barred windows, occupies one side of the unkempt square with its trees and benches and paving slabs from which grass sprouts. It is one of those rare schools with well-behaved children, much like the neighbourhood itself, not like the usual Rosario schools with rowdy kids. Mónica Dómina would probably disagree. The most valuable thing is not the building, but the culture and ethos that radiates from it. When the child enters the school he already knows about the level of behaviour expected, the values that he has to learn or maintain once there: the importance of belonging to the neighbourhood, of learning to improve, the need for collective effort. A genuinely good state school, then.

  The yard that leads to the classroom, with an arch framing the entrance and a tree in the centre, was so small it was barely big enough for keepy-uppy or even to play with just one goal. For that reason the boys preferred to resort to an area that today has many uses.

  ‘There is a multi-purpose room where school assemblies take place, but at that time, when Leo was here, it did not exist: it was all just a small field, lots of space for kids to run around or for games to take place.’ So says Diana Torreto, who taught Leo when he was six years old and who often stumbles over her wor
ds emotionally as she recalls ‘the Flea’s’ time here. ‘We would go into that small field with all the children. And something that I remember very well, and it makes me laugh even to this day, is that all of them ran after the ball and none of them managed to get it from him and they would come up to me and moan, “miss, he won’t pass the ball”. They couldn’t take it off him!

  ‘He was a very happy boy,’ continues Miss Torreto. ‘Introverted, yes, but happy. He was always smiling. And he had a lot of friends. He was very popular with his peers. With a family that were always there for him, that always asked about what he was doing at school because at home he was quite naughty and his mother used to ask how he was here.’

  There was, then, the Leo with the ball, the Leo at home and the Leo at school. One Leo in the classroom and another one outside, free, in the schoolyard, competing. The conversation continues with Diana:

  –

  Where does this need for his family, his school and his peers to protect him come from?

  –

  He generates that, this need to always keep an eye on him, look after him, that’s why he had so many friends, I guess. His mates were very fond of him. When he was demonstrating the great skill he had with the ball, they admired him, leadership qualities emanated from him. Not sure he knew about it, but the others saw that in him – a contradiction because at the same time in the classroom he was quiet. But where he went his mates followed him. He organised the game and he took them to an activity that he loved, the playing of football.

  –

  This is extraordinary, this leap from introversion to leadership …