Messi’s reputation was already well established nationally and scouts were a familiar sight at Newell’s youth fixtures, so there was no shortage of interested parties. Among the sides contemplating Messi was River Plate, Argentina’s most successful club. It would have represented a significant step up for Messi but the club concluded that the outlay on medical bills was too big a risk to take on a boy who was not even fourteen at the time. There was always a chance that, even if the treatment did allow Messi to develop sufficiently, injury or a loss of form could prevent them from ever seeing a return on such a large investment. As River Plate’s hesitancy revealed, even the top sides in Argentina could not afford to take the gamble.
It came as a huge relief when global heavyweights Barcelona invited the frustrated youngster for a trial. He travelled with his family to deepest Catalunya and set about winning himself a future in the game. The coaches watched in awe as Messi weaved his way through the tightly knit defences of their youth teams, consisting of some of the most promising prospects in football. The decision was unanimous and Messi was offered a contract which he gladly signed. In later years he would speak of the simplicity of the decision he had faced:
It wasn’t difficult for me to move to Barcelona because I knew I had to. I needed money for my medicine to help me grow and Barcelona were the only club that offered. So as soon as they did, I knew I had to go.
Considering that Messi is now considered to be one of the greatest players ever to play the game, the suggestion that his career could have fizzled out in his teenage years seems almost absurd. At age thirteen, Messi had been ineligible to sign a professional contract at Newell’s Old Boys, therefore Barcelona were not required to pay a single peseta in transfer fees to acquire him. As bargains go, there are few better.
His development at Barcelona was meteoric. Already equipped with impeccable attacking skills, the course of treatment meant that he soon had a body capable of using these assets. The only worrying side effect was that the rapid growth spurt outpaced his stamina and so he suffered from fatigue, but endurance training enabled him to overcome this. The reduced capacity for running did little to hide his talents, as the stars of Barcelona’s first team quickly noticed their soon-to-be teammate. Ronaldinho (below), the club’s leading performer at the time, expressed an early admiration for Messi’s talents: ‘When he came to train with the first team when he was still very young I already noticed that he was different and that with time he would become a big star.’ Unbeknown to Ronaldinho, the youngster would eventually usurp him as Barcelona’s main man, taking his coveted number 10 shirt in the process, although the two maintained a strong friendship. Messi had a lot to thank Ronaldinho for, not least his first goal, coming in the Camp Nou in May 2005. With Barcelona already a goal up against Albacete and with 87 minutes on the clock, the game appeared to be all but over when Messi made his way on to the pitch. But he had other ideas. Winning the ball with his back to goal, Messi laid it off to Ronaldinho before spinning and running into the box. The two players linking up in a manner reminiscent of time-worn partnership, Ronaldinho proceeded to loft the ball over the defence before Messi confidently lobbed the goalkeeper. It was exactly the type of cool finish that the Barcelona fans would witness hundreds of times over the following seasons.
The career of Lionel Messi has been one of the most phenomenal and record-breaking in the history of football. The fatigue that nagged throughout his early days at Barcelona faded, as did the injuries that stalled his breakthrough. In the space of a decade, Messi has transitioned from a feeble, underdeveloped boy into a true athlete. In the 2011/12 season he managed to play in 60 games across six separate tournaments at both club and international level, scoring a staggering 72 goals. It was more than any individual has ever scored in a single season, beating a pre-war record of 70 set in America. He shows no signs of slowing down either, as in 2012 he broke German striker Gerd Müller’s long-standing record for the most goals in a calendar year, scoring 91 times – six more than Müller’s 1972 total of 85. Yet for all of this he could have just as easily found himself plying his trade as a skilful but stoppable showman in South America, an admirable but insignificant existence compared to the one he boasts today.
It is often said of individuals that they were born in the wrong era and that their talents would have been better appreciated in a different period. This is not an assertion often made of Lionel Messi. When Messi arrived in Barcelona the stage was set for a big and sustained entrance to the game. What is more, Messi found himself in the one country that was the most conducive to his style of play, completely by chance. It was only as a result of his desperate need to fund his growth hormone treatment that Messi left his native Argentina at such a young age, a move he probably would not have made had it not been essential for his career.
In the early days at Barcelona he suffered badly from homesickness. When the chance to relocate to Spain had arisen the Messis had jumped at the chance, realising just how vital it could prove in Lionel’s development. However, they arrived with no knowledge of the city and were even surprised to learn that it was on the coast. His mother and siblings were unable to settle in their new surroundings and soon returned to their home in Rosario, Argentina; Lionel stayed on in Barcelona, accompanied by his father, Jorge. This turbulent time could so easily have seen Messi give up and return to his homeland but instead he persevered, living only for football as he rose through the ranks at the club’s La Masia academy. He was following in the footsteps of some of the club’s greatest talents, namely the likes of Xavi Hernández and Andres Iniesta; players who, like the academy’s new recruits, now look up to Messi themselves. Few clubs in world football have such an organic ethos, opting to produce their own talents instead of buying in established stars from their rivals. This trend has become even more deliberate since Messi emerged. Of course, the Argentine was not technically a home-grown player, but with the bulk of his footballing education coming from Barcelona he seems like one. He has become the exemplary product of an already esteemed production line, and without him Barcelona’s home-grown approach might have faltered.
With Messi leading the way, Barcelona have transformed from one of the best teams on earth to arguably the greatest team in history. As is often the case when a side surpasses their rivals in such imperious fashion, Barcelona took a different approach to other clubs on the pitch as well as off it. While all their rivals were building teams full of tall, muscled athletes, the Spaniards opted for a more technical approach. Even after hormone treatment Messi only stands at five feet seven inches; but he does not look out of place among his teammates. Xavi is the same height, so too Iniesta. Most of their players are less than six feet tall. They have adapted their style of play to suit their diminutive stature, in the process perfecting tiki-taka, the Spanish passing game that has taken the world by storm. Consisting of relentless short floor-bound passes, tiki-taka is aesthetically pleasing and aims to exhaust the opposition by dominating possession with quick, accurate exchanges. It was first introduced to the academy by Dutch footballing legend Johan Cruyff in the late 1980s, but the club could not completely rely on it until Messi came along; now other clubs seek to emulate it. As a result, academies across the globe have changed their focus from physicality to technical coaching, altering the whole sport. Young players who would once have been turned away for being too slight are now much coveted, whereas the attributes of stronger, taller players are less appreciated.
Messi’s impact upon Barcelona has also been felt off the pitch. Football is increasingly powered by money and sponsorship deals. In addition to his footballing excellence, Messi enjoys a lifestyle that is quiet and uncontroversial compared to that of most footballers. A clean-living individual at the peak of his profession, any brand would love to be associated with him. And he has reaped the rewards. In June 2012, business magazine Forbes revealed Messi’s earnings over the previous twelve months, both from club salary and individual sponsorship deals. The detai
ls were startling. With almost a 50:50 split between the two income sources, at the tender age of 25 he was making just under £25 million a year. Sponsorship money came from companies such as Adidas, PepsiCo, Herbalife and Dolce & Gabanna, among others.
Although these deals are impressive measures of his financial value, it was a Messi-driven club sponsorship deal that made clear his unrivalled worth.
Barcelona’s club motto is Més que un club: ‘More than a club’. It is a reference to its proud Catalan roots, exemplified by their desire to nurture home-grown stars – players who understand the culture of Barcelona. There is no more iconic symbol of the club’s heritage than the famous blue and burgundy kit, known locally as the blaugrana. In an attempt to preserve their unique traditions, the club refused to sell sponsorship space on their shirts when this became common in the late 1970s, and, unusually, maintained the ban well into the 21st century. Further to this, when they finally did free up space on their shirts for advertising, it was not to secure multi-million-euro sponsorship for the club. Instead, in September 2006, Barcelona pledged to donate an annual sum to international children’s charity UNICEF and in turn display its logo on their shirts. It was an admirable and widely praised move from the club, providing great publicity for both the club and the charity.
However, by 2011 Barcelona’s financial situation had weakened considerably. A culture of financial mismanagement blighted the club and the wage bill had become unmanageable. The club had two options: sell players or sell shirt space. The sale of one player in particular could have helped the club to finance the rest of its stars for a number of seasons; but naturally the club was not prepared to sell Messi, the best player of a generation, at any price. As a result, having taken out a loan of £120 million the year before to stave off the inevitable, in December 2010 the club agreed a sponsorship deal with non-profit organisation the Qatar Foundation, whose logo moved that of UNICEF to the back of the shirt. Netting the club £148 million over the next five years, it was the largest ever deal of its type in football and was made both possible and necessary by Lionel Messi’s presence at the club. It was a deal that angered many of the club’s supporters, not least Johan Cruyff, the man who had arguably laid the foundations for Messi’s progress. ‘By selling the shirt it shows me that we are not being creative, and that we have become vulgar,’ said Cruyff. ‘If things are so bad, then we should cut out the deal we have with UNICEF, and all the values it represents, because we pay them to carry the logo on our shirts.’ Many agreed with him.
Although Cruyff’s suggestion of calling time on the UNICEF deal highlighted the strength of feeling about the sponsorship deal, in reality it would not have helped. The club paid roughly £1.6 million a year to the charity, a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of their debts and the resulting Qatar Foundation deal. Had the club sold Messi, they would have been considerably weaker on the pitch and so missed out on vital prize money from competitions, along with the unmatched demand for shirt sales with ‘Messi 10’ printed on the back. In reality even if the club had sold its most valuable asset, it would merely have staved off the need for sponsorship for a few more years; and without Messi at the club, sponsorship would have been worth far less. The salaries that got Barcelona into financial difficulties, not least that of Lionel Messi, were a product of the wider market and as their rivals funded wage bills with sponsorship, Cruyff’s idealistic approach would always have been unsustainable.
In the end, Messi’s presence at the world’s biggest club enabled payments to UNICEF to continue. It also kept him in the spotlight, making the Leo Messi Foundation possible. The foundation reflects the difficult beginning of Messi’s journey to superstardom, funding medical centres for children with conditions including but not limited to growth hormone deficiency and assisting with the additional costs that can otherwise make treatment unaffordable, such as travel and accommodation for the families of sick children. He has also personally footed the medical bill for a Moroccan youngster, Waleed Kashash, who requires a similar course of treatment to the one Barcelona paid for Messi to undergo as a child. Lasting six years, the treatment costs are expected to exceed £30,000 by the end of the course. It may be a small sum when compared to Messi’s earnings, but it would otherwise be unaffordable for Kashash’s family, as would it have been for Messi if not for Barcelona’s investment.
Lionel Messi continues to forge a quite remarkable career on the pitch, and will probably be regarded by most as the world’s greatest ever player when he eventually retires. But his work off the pitch has been even more impressive. Barcelona’s charitable legacy would have suffered had they decided not to take a chance on the small boy from Rosario. They would most likely have sold their stars to stave off the threat of shirt sponsorship for another year or two, and the UNICEF partnership may well have fallen foul of the fans’ outrage. But with Messi in the team, they have a player worth selling shirt space for. It is much better to sell shirt space than Messi, as UNICEF, the Qatar Foundation and children everywhere like Waleed Kashash will attest.
Chapter 10
Imagine that …
Robben Island remains a football-free zone … and the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement remain immobilised
When the World Cup came to South Africa in the summer of 2010, it was inevitable that the nation’s chequered past would be revisited. The national team, affectionately known as Bafana Bafana (Zulu for ‘the boys’), had been banned from the competition between 1958 and 1992 due to FIFA’s opposition to the apartheid regime. However, despite South Africa being shunned by the international community, football remained a vital part of life there, not least for the prisoners of Robben Island.
Situated five and a half miles off the shore of Cape Town, Robben Island is now a World Heritage Site and one of South Africa’s most-visited tourist attractions. Over 1,000 people a day visit the island by ferry. The tourists do not come for the views, although on a clear day these can be quite spectacular. They come to hear the stories of the prisoners who were held there – the anti-apartheid activists – and of the leper colony before it. Once part of the mainland, erosion has since cut the island adrift and it now stands alone, the perfect reminder of the colossal struggles of Nelson Mandela and his peers.
The apartheid regime, a system of racial segregation, was in place from 1948 until 1994. To suppress any backlash, the government imprisoned the leaders of their political opposition on Robben Island, and the pre-existing contingent of non-political prisoners soon came to be vastly outnumbered. Here they endured a gruelling regime of physically demanding work, an oppressive schedule designed to sap any energy for revolt. Food was scarce and prisoners were subjected to intrusive and humiliating searches on a daily basis. In some cases cells accommodated three times the recommended number of inmates. Prisoners longed for anything that would allow them even the briefest escape from their reality. In an attempt to satisfy this desire, in 1964 the inmates launched a widespread and long-running campaign. Every week a different prisoner would approach the warders with a simple request – bring football to Robben Island. The decision to share the duty was not cowardly, nor was it a display of unity, but was rather a defence mechanism. Asking had consequences and prisoners were routinely punished for their audacity. Had the burden of the campaign fallen upon one individual’s shoulders, it would not have lasted long.
Much to everyone’s surprise, after three years of rebuffals, in 1967 the warders relented. One of the rights afforded to prisoners was contact with the Red Cross; they could make requests and raise concerns, and the organisation would attempt to address them on the inmates’ behalf. So, with the help of the Red Cross, the Makana Football Association was founded. It was named by prisoners after a warrior prophet who himself had been imprisoned on the island in the 1800s, and who sadly drowned trying to escape. Football, or diski as it is known in the townships, was coming to Robben Island and the prisoners readied themselves for its arrival. The first task was to set up teams. It e
merged that the jailers had only given in to the inmates’ petitioning because they saw the opportunity to nurture rivalries among prisoners. The inaugural Makana football league was contested by seven sides consisting solely of prisoners – the warders wanted nothing to do with it. In keeping with the authorities’ ‘divide and rule’ agenda, the teams were not simply clusters of unaffiliated men but groups based on political beliefs. All except for one. The Manong team was a free house, open to any player who could not relate to any of the other six, an eclectic approach at odds with the apartheid regime.
As expected, the league was very well received, attracting many players and fans. Before long the seven teams essentially became clubs, complete with reserve teams, and in time further leagues were required to satisfy the increased number of willing participants and differing standards. Suddenly the prisoners had something meaningful to think about. There was a focal point to life on the island, something more fulfilling than just splitting rocks mindlessly day after day. In time the pre-existing divisions on the island, rather than being exacerbated, became muted. The split between advocates of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the African National Congress (ANC) weakened as the opposing parties were able to resolve at least some of their differences on the field of play. Such was the overwhelming power of football on Robben Island that the prison authorities began to fight against it. They would announce, without reason or notice, that there would be no football that week. Sporadic, unpredictable and crushing blows were dealt to prisoners until all they could do was revolt. They wanted to play football but only on their terms; it was a matter of principle that they were not prepared to see compromised. After much discussion, the prisoners decided that they would boycott the league. On a week when the guards decided to allow football, the prisoners simply refused to play, responding with the same words that were used to deprive them: ‘No football today’. The football may have gone, but inmates were united like never before. The stand-off lasted for an entire year, ending only when the guards on the island were replaced. In 1968 the league returned, stronger than ever.
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