Messi

by Guillem Balague

  Quique Domínguez: Yes, we did the typical training sessions about passing and stopping the ball. Once, one of the coaches asked his pupils how many ways of touching the ball a player had. And they answered: ten, fifteen, twelve. Well, there are in fact almost two hundred. You can even stop it with your back. So, now then, how many ways are there of passing the ball? You see, what we were trying to do at the football school is teach the kids all these things: how to pass the ball, how to stop it, how to imagine the play, to be aware that to reach the goal it is not always the best idea to look for a long pass …

  Gerardo Grighini: We had fun, above all, because we were a group of friends, we were not at school, or at work, where nobody spoke to each other, no way; we were a group of mates. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get out of school, get something to eat and then go training.

  Quique Domínguez: We also showed them situations that could occur in a game. And sometimes we encouraged competition: we showed them what we call here loco (crazy), and what is known at Barcelona as rondo (piggy in the middle), although there were always arguments because no one wanted to go in the middle. Somehow we created an environment that encouraged craftiness, even though, it has to be said, the Argentinians have sometimes gone too far down that road, as was demonstrated by Maradona’s handball goal. But in those games, in practice, you needed cunning.

  There are six categories at the Malvinas for kids aged 6 to 12, and even though now they still have some 300 children, it is said that there have been occasions when there were 800 under the control of Newell’s. From these earth pitches (now grass on the pitch one) have come Bielsa, Sensini, Balbo, Batistuta, Valdano, Pochettino, Solari. And this is just one of the schools scattered throughout Argentina. Thousands of youngsters sign up for them, the assured route to the top. But normally, after just a couple of years, here too is where, for many of them, their footballing dreams come to an end.

  Jorge Valdano: I left my home and found myself on a football pitch that measured 1,000 square kilometres: a vast plain, interrupted only by the odd cow or an occasional tree, with everything else a football pitch. And a well-fed area, which is also important, because there are other, more deprived, areas where the problem of nutrition does not favour the rise of great footballers.

  There is passion, sentiment, hope and frustration in Rosario. And you learn about football, but, above all you gain friends, you understand about the meaning of community, and you create narratives for your life that will be with you for ever. Argentina creates its social image around the ball. They play for their lives: and even if ultimately that isn’t true, that’s the feeling you’re left with – it is a place to win and to learn how to win, and that attitude helps kids improve. Football at this age is pure, old, real and unrepeatable even though market forces are threatening it, even though some of the legendary technical directors (such as Griffa) did not make footballers to sell but, rather, to grow as more rounded individuals.

  Quique Domínguez: The way of competing is also very important, because it is no fun having four goals stuck past you, it’s obviously much more fun to score them. But above all, you have to show that at the end of the game it is just a game – the kids have to shake hands, congratulate the winners, even if you have lost 10–0. Or if you have won, you have to congratulate the losing side: and if they don’t want to shake hands, no problem. We turn round and go home. Sometimes it will be us who will not feel like doing it …

  Jorge Valdano: Jorge Griffa was the guru of football development in Argentina and Newell’s followed his ideas, which placed their academy at the top of the scale.

  Quique Domínguez: And from Newell’s Leo took technique, craft and his winning attitude. What I always said to my lads was: we go onto the field, we are winning 1–0, we look for the 2–0, we look for the 3–0, 4–0 … and so on unless the ref decides to stop the game. There was a time here when we won 10–0, 15–0 and, of course, the matches used to get to a point when the boys from the other side, maybe after the tenth goal, did not want to play any more; then they put a limit of 6–0. At 6–0 the game would he halted.

  Jorge Valdano: But in a way it all ended when Griffa packed up. In recent years some terrible abuses have taken place. For example, the Barras Bravas (football’s ultra supporters) were the owners of the youth players. This alone tells you about the moral bankruptcy that overtook the club, something that has thankfully been remedied under new management.

  Ernesto Vecchio: It’s possible that the standard of ‘baby’ football has gone down a bit, but this is because of the change in society. There are boys whose fathers can’t bring them because they are unable to pay. That’s it. Also the children of today are different. They are more rebellious. Answer back. Don’t listen. Before, they were more manageable, now they are more difficult. Another thing that has an effect is that there are not so many new fields available. We lack pitches. Today technology affects children who prefer to be with their computer, PlayStation, the internet and they are not so interested in doing sport. Unfortunately.

  Scene Two

  Onto the darkened set a video is projected where you can see the eight-year-old Messi scores with both feet, he hardly gives the ball to anyone, shows his competitive spirit when they hit him. When he is knocked over, he stops at first and then carries on. Even in this he isn’t like the rest. And then, in the fifth minute, comes a typically Rosarian moment: Messi and the rest of the side, who have just won the game, receive instructions from their coach to go and console their beaten opponents. Leo runs to a young rival lying on the ground rueing his team’s defeat. Of course he is doing what he has been told by the coach, but nobody ordered him to run to the player. Nor to get down on his knees. Nor embrace the rival lying on the floor. At this age there is no hypocrisy, none of this can be forced. Many would call this football in its purest state.

  The characters look over the newspaper Olé. One of them starts to read in a loud voice: ‘Lionel Messi is quite sure in his own mind that his future does not lie as a coach. He cannot see himself giving instructions from the bench. However, when he starts to talk about football, his references all finish at the same place, always stressing the main traits: a side that always attacks, a high defensive line, a great deal of pressure high up the pitch to force the opposition to play long, and goals. Lots of goals. Pep’s Barcelona? No: the Machine of ’87, an unbeatable side that joined the ranks of Newell’s Infantiles: Leguizamón, Pecce, Gianantonio, Casanova, Scaglia, González, Giménez, Ruani, Mazzia, Bravo, Miró among others.’

  Gerardo Grighini: I think the name ‘Machine of ’87’ came much later. I don’t remember anyone calling us that.

  Diego Rovira: Newell’s side of ’87. Quique’s side. Quique Domínguez, the father of Seba, the one who plays at Velez, the central defender. In goal was Juan Cruz Leguizamón, who is now at Central Córdoba. At number 5 played Lucas Scaglia, a monster. They called him ‘Pulpo’ (the octopus). These days he is at Once Caldas, in Colombia. Rosso is today at Brescia, Grighini, you have played in Italy. Leandro Giménez, who afterwards went to River, and another Leandro: Benítez. And Leo, Roncaglia and me. ‘The Newell’s ’87 side was invincible,’ people used to say. We won everything in 1999 and nearly everything in 2000. This is how the games went: 8–0, 7–2, we lost count.

  Gerardo Grighini: In Rosario they talked a lot about this group because we had Leo, Juan Cruz (Leguizamón), Lucas (Scaglia) … they were very good players. We started on small pitches, seven-a-side. Leo on his own would score three or four.

  Diego Rovira: That forward line was tremendous. Leo number 10. At 7, Roncaglia, yes, Roncaglia. Very fast, hit in some great crosses, I remember. Add there Bergessio. What a guy, what a player Bergessio. And up front with the number 9, me.

  The same person as before (it could be anyone) begins to recite again in a loud voice, another paragraph from the Olé article: ‘The team functioned with the collective solidarity of a colony of worker ants. That’s how they maximised their potential. And Leo
at just eight years of age was already the distinctive feature, the driving force of a well-oiled machine.’

  Diego Rovira: In 1999 we played three tournaments and won them all: I even remember winning all the matches too, like 45 of them, 15 per tournament, madness; all of them, well, except for one: against Central. They were the only side that could give us a game, although in the return we walloped them, 4–0. They never got close to our goal that day, it was rare that any side got close to our goal.

  Quique Domínguez: From Argentina, Leo took the natural technique of the Latin American, like Neymar, like Ronaldinho, Riquelme … the way to position the body to accommodate the ball, to control it, to direct it. From Newell’s he took the winning mentality.

  Leandro Benítez (ex-junior player at NOB): He was a sensation, we’d arrive at the pitch and our opponents would say, ‘I wouldn’t give you two pesos for him’, but when he got the ball he skinned them.

  Diego Rovira: One time it occurred to one of Quique’s assistants that it would be a good idea to compete against each other to motivate us. The Newell’s of the first half against the Newell’s of the second. At half-time we were winning 3–0. Perfect. And in the second half? Four? So then the Newell’s second team won 4–3. It was a laugh. With Leo, playing football was a laugh.

  Ernesto Vecchio: He was a marvel. He was clever, he had a good short touch, he would leave the ball dead, he played for his teammates. Once on pitch one at the Malvinas, the goalkeeper gave him the ball and he went from one goal to another to score a stupendous goal. You didn’t have to show him anything. What can you show a Maradona or a Pelé? The only thing that a coach could do is correct some little details.

  Juan Cruz Leguizamón (ex-junior player at NOB): In Europe he became famous for that goal he scored against Getafe, but for us that was normal, we saw him score goals like that as a matter of course.

  Diego Rovira: Leo, every time I see him … I smile thinking about the crazy things that he does. He’s a monster. Like the five goals he scored against Bayer Leverkusen: who else would think of scoring five in a match, let alone in the Champions League? And just how does he do it? That’s exactly how it was at Newell’s. Less acceleration, less explosion, but the same.

  Quique Domínguez: He had fantastic co-ordination for someone of his age. For Leo it’s like the ball forms part of his body. If it comes high and he has to use his head to control it, he uses his cheek because he knows that is the best way to cushion it. Perhaps another boy will put his forehead first because he knows it’s a harder part of his body and more used to taking a hit. Why? Because Leo is different.

  Gabriel Digerolamo: Technically he was gifted like no boy I have ever seen. He was so good that a lot of times I changed his position so he could adapt to all aspects of playing on the pitch. On one occasion I played him as sweeper, and, yes, it looked like he had been playing there all his life.

  Quique Domínguez: I often say that I don’t know who learned more from whom. Leo from us or us from Leo.

  Adrián Coria (coach, NOB): ‘You don’t coach your team when Leo’s playing’, they used to tell me.

  Diego Rovira: Leo would take on a couple of players and left me one on one. It was always like that. I had to get myself prepared, stopped on the last line of our opponents, and ready: one on one, guaranteed. The other trick we did was the long ball if things got complicated, which they rarely did. Leguizamón, the goalkeeper, would look for me. ‘Bring it down for me,’ Leo would shout. Can you imagine. I was a head taller than my rivals. Easy.

  Juan Cruz Leguizamón: At one of the tournaments, if we became champions the organisers were going to give us each a bicycle. We got to the final but we started the match without Leo, he just didn’t arrive … and we finished the first half 1–0 down. Where was he? He got there late because he’d been locked in the bathroom at home and had to break the glass in the window to get out! He got in there in time for the second half and we ended up winning 3–1 … with three goals from Leo. But like I said, millions of games. There were many things we lived together, a whole childhood.

  Bruno Milanesio (ex-junior player at NOB): I remember telling my grandmother, who saw me crestfallen, that Leo had sprained his ankle and wouldn’t be able to play the following day. My grandma is a healer and she asked me the name of the boy. ‘Leo, Leo Messi,’ I told her. She never told me what she had done, nor did I want to tell Leo that my grandmother had … well, that she’d healed him … but the following day Leo got up as if nothing had happened, with the swelling on the ankle gone. He played and we came out champions. Years later I was at my grandmother’s house, and on television there was Messi playing for Barcelona. ‘Grandma, do you remember him?’ I asked her. When she answered, ‘not in the slightest’, I reminded her. Now when she sees Messi on television she smiles and boasts: ‘That boy … I healed that boy once.’

  Gerardo Grighini: At that time we did not have to work for the team, not much anyway. It was simple: we just needed to give him the ball and that was it. Game over. He might lose it once or twice, but the third and fourth time he’d score two goals. Guaranteed.

  Ángel Ruani (father of ex-NOB player ‘Luli’ Ruani): Maybe people nowadays don’t believe it, but Leo scored about 100 goals per season in all the games we played. If we bear in mind that he came to Newell’s in 1994 and left in 2000, we are talking about more than 500 goals throughout his time with the Infantiles, which is totally outrageous.

  Adrián Coria: Perhaps he was not aware of it at the time, but in a way it is an advantage to be small – you control the ball better, you’re more agile and faster than the rest.

  Quique Domínguez: He passed the ball, but wouldn’t just push it to you, but, rather, lift it up, bounce it up on his toes a couple of times before passing, that kind of thing. Leo is football in its purest sense. Not obsessed with the money, no, football for the fun of it.

  Gerardo Grighini: On the Newell’s pitch, the directors would ask him to do some keepy-uppy before the game or at half-time. On one occasion, in Mar del Plata, he did keepy-uppies before the game, and fans would throw money at him, coins. Fifteen minutes would go by and he still hadn’t lost control of the ball. In Peru, I think he got up to 1,200 touches. He was nine years old at the time.

  Franco Casanova (ex-junior player at NOB): At the farewell of the legendary Newell’s player and current Barcelona manager Gerardo Martino in the summer of 1996, the Newell’s boys did a lap of honour at half-time. They had been crowned champions. Suddenly they stopped in the middle of the pitch and pushed Leo into the centre circle. The stands raised the roof. ‘Marado, Marado!!’ screamed the crowd as Leo practised his keepy-uppies.

  Nestor Rozín (former director of NOB): For every 100 touches, sometimes he got an ice cream and I think he made 1,100 touches and they gave him 10 ice creams.

  Gerardo Grighini: At 11, we went from seven-a-side to 11-a-side. Sometimes both, Saturday the sevens, and Sundays, 11s. To get used to it. And against 11 he stood out even more, he had more pitch, more space. He was fast. Very fast. He got through gaps he didn’t fit into. It was incredible.

  Adrián Coria: I played him just behind the strikers, either in a free role or, as it is known, the enganche in a 4-3-1-2 formation.

  Quique Domínguez: His opponents tried to hide the effect he had on them, but would eye him up and down with a bit of fear. He generated something inexplicable for a kid of 10 or 11 years old.

  Diego Rovira: The conversations between the opposing defenders were wonderful:

  –

  We can’t stop this kid.

  –

  No.

  –

  So what we going to do?

  –

  How should I know? Didn’t you just say that he can’t be stopped?

  They were right. Once at a training session one of the coaches played me at the back.

  –

  ‘Mama, they made me play at the back and on top of that I had to mark Leo.’ You should have heard me that night.
‘Mum, I couldn’t even grab him by the shirt. And I wasn’t about to start kicking Leo.’

  My poor mother. She remembers it to this day

  –

  Enough Leo, stop fucking about, stop running – I kept saying to him, while he was pissing himself with laughter. He’s fun is Leo. Funny.

  Quique Domínguez: We were playing against Morning Star and their trainer came up to me and asked me if I would take Lionel off at half-time, and of course I said no, because Leo and the goalkeeper, Leguizamón, I never took off.

  Gerardo Grighini: Once he performed five flick-overs against one player. The player threw himself to the ground and grabbed his feet! Five flick-overs, one after the other. On top of that he was 1.40 metres, while the other boy was 1.70. That’s how he enjoyed himself. He didn’t do it to brag … no, no, no. There was never any lip, none of that, never. In the Rosario league, Oriental, Rio Negro … they are teams of the neighbourhood that like to play it rough, dish it out, and no … they bitched at him, said things to him, and he said nothing. He just showed everything with his football.

  Quique Domínguez: I have seen games in the lower levels of Argentinian football that are pitched battles. It is okay if you dribble past me, but next time I’ll have you, I’ll get sent off but you won’t be doing that to me again. That happens a lot here. And that’s what they would have done to Leo had he stayed here any longer. One of the few instructions that I gave him was to release the ball quickly, because when he had control of the ball, defenders did all kinds to stop him. And the kids, sometimes from instructions given to them by their elders, or sometimes off their own backs, if they couldn’t stop him and he went past you, then past you, then past you again … they would elbow him, kick him from behind. So I told him ‘make sure you get rid of the ball earlier’. But for him the way he played, which is the way you see now, keeping the ball was only natural. And, by the way, he had a very good eye to see when they were coming in to hit him. So often they couldn’t even come close.