I don’t remember seeing him cry. In my consulting room? No, I don’t recall ever seeing Leo cry. What’s more, I’m convinced that if you ask him directly what his worst moments were, when he suffered most, what hurt him the most, I don’t believe for a minute that he even remembers his treatment. I don’t recall that the treatment was especially traumatic for him. Clearly, for all youngsters, when you tell them they have a problem, and that it will be resolved by using injections it has two effects. First, they are pleased when you tell them the problem is easily solvable. Or if not easily, at least solvable. And then this difficulty with growing will disappear and they will grow normally, and they will conquer the limitations that it puts on them. This makes them happy. But when you tell them that the solution is to stick an injection into themselves for the next two thousand days, or … I don’t know … three, four, years, they don’t fancy it much. But I don’t remember that his reaction was to cry. Of course when you say to him, yes: you’re going to have to inject yourself, he didn’t like it at all. But then, who would?
If you notice, the players … it’s rare to find a player like Cristiano Ronaldo who is talented and big. Generally, the talented players are small. In Argentina, Orteguita, who played at Valencia, or Maradona, or Neymar, as well, they are not big players. I think for the type of game they played, the dribbles they make, they need to have a fairly low centre of gravity and for reasons of mobility … it helps to be small, no? But, that said, is the talent Leo has for playing on the ball what makes him what he is now?
The doctor continues arranging the papers on his office desk. He takes off his white coat. The consultation is coming to an end.
To put it another way, Leo’s treatment has no influence whatsoever on his emotional development. But what is clear, and I tell you this also as a small person (I am short, I measure 5'7" and I was short as a child as well), at times it means you are at a disadvantage. With your friends who are taller. It is common for children to get into fights, and I’m not talking about Messi here, I’m talking in general. With kids it’s easy to get into a fight over the silliest things, and if you’re small you cop it. If you’re tall it’s easier to get ahead. And with girls, exactly the same: the girls like taller blokes. When you’re small, very small, it is not easy. In truth, with Leo it was pathological: he lacked a hormone. He was below what was considered to be the normal, which can lead to certain personality traits, a certain inhibition, insecurity. In other words, when the body permits … or at least doesn’t put limitations on you … your personality will develop normally. But if a person is already introverted then lack of stature will only add to feelings of insecurity.
Is it doping? The growth hormone has been used as a supplement by adults who do not need it, with the objective of gaining a sporting advantage. But you have to differentiate between growth hormone treatment for an adult who doesn’t need it, who is looking for a physical benefit – and they are high doses and can have very negative side-effects – and the treatment of a physical deficiency in a young boy. The first thing to say is that Leo was a nine-year-old boy and I don’t think he could ever have imagined this scenario. What’s more, if you could ask him: when you were nine, 10, 11, what did you dream about? I don’t believe he dreamt about this, being the best in the world. I think that this would have exceeded any dream. Look, when I was a boy, I dreamt about wearing the number 9 Newell’s shirt. I would come on with five minutes remaining, and score the winning goal that won us the league. I dreamt that they gave me the number 9 shirt for Argentina and I scored the winning goal in the last minute of the World Cup final. But if you achieve this, you have to say it exceeds your dream. The treatment he received is not the reason why he managed to achieve his dream. He was a nine-year-old boy who loved football, just like 99 per cent of nine-year-olds in Argentina. Imagine for a minute that today at Newell’s they give one hundred boys aged between 8 and 10 the same treatment – they would have a hundred Messis! And that’s not even taking into account a place like La Masía in Barcelona, which has an economic capacity far in excess of ours, and probably also junior divisions superior to ours. They would now be manufacturing with growth hormone some 10 or 12 Messis every year!
I have a young child, and when I was giving Leo this treatment in 1997, my son was three. If giving this treatment to a boy can turn him into the best player in the world, I would have given it to my son, not to Leo.
What’s more, if I remember correctly, the treatment was interrupted when Leo was 15, or was almost 15. Already in Barcelona. It’s said that growth like his puts a strain on the body, muscular problems like those he suffered as an adolescent, but that has nothing to do with it because in truth every child with a hormone deficiency is growing less than he should. And when the treatment replaces the deficiency, and the child no longer has a shortage of this particular hormone, he starts to grow normally, at the same rate as his peers. Do you understand?
That explains why it is not doping: because whoever has this hormone deficiency is at a disadvantage to everyone else. Making up for this deficiency with a hormone that he is lacking simply means that while he is no longer at a disadvantage he doesn’t have an advantage either. To put it another way, he gains something by adding the hormone but not compared with his peers who already have it naturally.
It was certainly an expensive treatment. The charity that Jorge created and his National Health were very good over a long period. What happened is that this country fell apart in 2000 and 2001, and the whole welfare system broke down, and in many cases such treatment was interrupted, generating a great deal of uncertainty. This country went up in flames. But perhaps at that time Newell’s could have done more.
I never saw him play in a Newell’s shirt. I hope I shall one day. I have watched him on television. I have seen him play live in the Argentina shirt. Maybe one day I will see him in the red and black. I hope so: back in the days when he had doubts about becoming a footballer, I said to him: ‘stay calm, and you can dedicate a goal to me. I will tell you where I am, where I’m sitting and you will come to me and you will dedicate a goal to me.’ And when I see him, I tell him: ‘you owe me that goal.’ Ha! In a Newell’s shirt, at the Coloso, our ground.
The doctor switches off all the lights but one, and stands in front of a door that leads to a small exit. He puts on his hat; doctors should always wear hats.
At one time he used to look at me as if to say, ‘this is the doctor who will help me to grow’ and would probably look up to me. I must have been a strong presence to him. But today I am the one in awe of him. I’m the one who says ‘he is the best footballer in the world’.
(A child’s voice is heard): Will I grow?
You’re going to be taller than Maradona. I don’t know if you’re going to be better, but you’ll be taller.
That’s exactly what I said to him.
Scene Three
The voice of an Argentinian radio commentator, maybe that of Gazzo, is heard, talking about ‘baby’ football at Newell’s. On the wall in large letters, at first individually and finally all together, the following words appear:
At the age of 10, in the first month of 1997, Leo measured 1.27 metres. Delayed growth.
By the time he was 11, he measured 1.32 metres, and weighed 30 kilos.
At 12 years old, Leo measured 1.48 metres and weighed 39 kilos.
Today he is 1.69 metres, two centimetres taller than Maradona.
A family of three boys and a girl, the youngest, gather with their mother and father around a small table in a little dining room and talk among themselves. The father dominates, though everyone contributes.
On one of those cumbersome televisions that still existed in 2000 there are images of an Argentina in crisis.
Suddenly all the lights apart from one go out. The only one that remains on is pointed at the father of the family who turns to the audience and answers questions put to him in a deep voice with a German accent. What follows is an interview that Jorge Messi
gave to the magazine Kicker.
Kicker: You had a lot of concerns, fear and uncertainty.
Jorge Messi: Well, after all, I had my work at Acindar and things were good there. It was the era of uno a uno (one peso the equivalent of a dollar) and my salary of 1,600 pesos a month wasn’t bad. Except that the treatment cost 900, more than half what I earned. And my social benefits only covered the treatment for two years which meant the third year was very difficult.
Kicker: And he needed at least one more, as the endocrinologist Diego Schwarzstein, in charge of the treatment, explained.
Jorge Messi: Yes, and it is not true when people say that, in any case, the state took care of it. The state never called me and I never asked them for anything. Perhaps if I had managed to speak to some high-up people … But I was just an ordinary citizen, no one knew me.
Kicker: You’ve said once ‘I wouldn’t be able to do this again today’.
Jorge Messi: It was a risk, even though at work they were willing to wait for me and see how things turned out in Spain. But all these comings and goings, the uncertainty and everything, it wasn’t easy at all.
Kicker: And what did they say [when you went to talk to River]?
Jorge Messi: When we got back to Newell’s they said, ‘we will pay for the treatment, don’t worry.’ But nothing happened, we talked about it again, it was like I was begging, they gave me 300 pesos and never any more. But it was not Newell’s as an institution that let us down, it was the people who were in charge of it at that time.
Kicker: In a nutshell: if an Argentinian club had paid for the treatment, Lionel would not have left Argentina?
Jorge Messi: If they had paid, naturally he would have stayed at Newell’s.
Kicker: And what did Leo say?
Jorge Messi: He was keen to go.
Lights go off.
Scene Four
Sergio Levinsky, author, sociologist and journalist, addresses the audience on a stage where images of Argentina in 1999, 2000 and 2001 are projected onto a backdrop behind him: we see youngsters playing football, grandfathers demanding their money from closed banks, angry fans, all sorts of images related to the subjects Sergio is addressing.
As Sandra Commisso and Carlos Benítez say in their book La infancia hecha pelota (‘Childhood Made Football’): ‘It’s one thing to have a boy who likes football, and who also plays well, and something very different to create a star, with all that it signifies.’ It is no coincidence the year that the book first appeared, nor is the fact that the prologue is written by the late humorist and genius Robert Fontanarrosa, one of the greatest storytellers of real-life Argentina, who was born, like Lionel Messi, in Rosario.
The book is divided into seven chapters and at the end contains tips on how to organise and conduct a junior training session, how to avoid making errors and how to develop the appropriate fitness for every child, while exploring the idea that football has become a business even with children, pressured by parents, coaches and agents, so the game stops being a pleasure and becomes a quasi-professional obligation.
In his prologue, Fontanarrosa writes with some justification, ‘no one has the right to frustrate the dreams of a kid’. But the book asks whether it is ethical that a child, not yet 10 years old, should bear the burden of being the breadwinner of the family by playing football.
For many years now, but especially in the twenty-first century, the socio-economic frustration of a vast sector of the Argentinian population (an estimated quarter of the 40 million people, according to the last national population census held in 2011) has led them to pursue a career in football as their only route to salvation.
How did we get to this? On one side, it has to be understood that from 1999 to 2001 Argentina lived through the last years of an economic plan that had lasted for a quarter of a century; a plan perpetrated by financial oligarchs and supported by the Church. This followed a bloody coup d’état that resulted in the disappearance of a total of 30,000 people, from 24 March 1976 onwards.
The economic plan involved borrowing money from North American banks at very high rates of interest, just as the rest of South America did. The country ended up in such debt that it was effectively bankrupt, while increasing rates of interest meant the country was being monitored by organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Eventually, in the last week of 2001, Fernando de la Rua’s centre-left alliance government fell. The Argentinian people, shaken by years of fiscal incompetence, demanded that they should all step down, with the result that the country had no fewer than five different heads of government in a week. Then, at the beginning of 2002, the ruling class opted to put in charge, unelected, the powerful Peronist Eduardo Duhalde.
Thus the country was trapped between the ‘corralito’ and the ‘corralón’.
Before the crisis, the large foreign banks had withdrawn all their funds from the country so that it was now impossible to withdraw dollars, the preferred currency of the Argentinian people (they did not trust the peso); and to make matters worse, they placed a super-low limit on the amount of money that could be withdrawn, when the cash machines were not working (the corralito).
While this chaos ensued, a bank holiday was announced and at a time when there was parity between the dollar and the peso. But when, a few days later, the banks reopened, the dollar cost three times more. Suddenly, many people found that the value of their savings had been cut by two-thirds and there was nothing they could do about it (the corralón).
In other words, in a white-collar attack the banks had robbed the people. This led to mass demonstrations outside the banks (which remained shut), pensioners smashing the windows with hammers and sticks, and of course all confidence in the Argentinian banking system evaporated.
Around this time, without the circulation of money in the system, the government implemented a policy of printing ‘painted papers’. These were vouchers that in different provinces had different names (the Patacones, Lecor, Lecop or Tucumano dollar); they were quoted lower than the peso, and some businesses announced in their windows that they accepted many of these vouchers, as well as dollars, pesos, reales and all types of credit cards. Many still remember Duhalde’s hollow promise that those who had dollars in their accounts ‘would receive dollars’, as well as those who had pesos ‘would receive pesos’.
It was during this period at the beginning of the twenty-first century, at the time of the worst institutional crisis Argentina has ever experienced, that football, as a business, having already been established as the people’s sport of choice, came to the fore.
The triumphs of Argentinian teams during these years represented some of the few successes in life that could be enjoyed by every member of the failed classes, beaten down daily by life’s trials. For many, the only hope during this period of unrest was the possibility that a member of the family might make it as a professional footballer and ‘rescue’ the rest of the family from financial disaster. A slang saying much repeated at the time was, ‘yo soy yo y mi tío de América’ or ‘I am me and my uncle from America’. Argentinians were helped by those fortunate enough to succeed and earn money abroad.
It was certainly incredible listening to fans in the stands in first division games, where large numbers of unemployed or desperate people would scream ‘loser, loser’ at a player solely because he had been unsuccessful in Europe, although you have to bear in mind what this represented symbolically. In the Nineties, we were all complicit in planting seeds of avarice in our children. President Carlos Menem’s message that with power comes licence to live a life without scruples became a fashionable ideology that ended up being transferred to football, and manifested itself at games. In 2000 we looked on passively as young professionals played, while tolerating the frenzied abuse coming from their parents during training and at matches, being chased by labels like Nike etc. trying to sign them up for their first contracts, the appearance of agents hoping to discover future talents and the arrogant posturing
of very young players, confused by the whole debacle.
And that’s why there were incidences in ‘baby’ football of fathers hitting coaches and referees, clubs stealing players, games that needed a police presence and bosses who took advantage of family anxiety.
In this context it became commonplace for children or youngsters, often sponsored by large organisations, to become the family breadwinners. This depended to a large extent on the amount of pressure applied by their elders.
A few of those kids had the good fortune to team up with some excellent coaches whose first concern was for their welfare. One of those was Carlos Timoteo Griguol, creator of the dominant Ferro Carril Oeste in the Eighties and the Gimnasia and Esgrima la Plate in the Nineties. ‘He advised us that with the first big money we earned we should buy our house, and he used to go crazy if he saw us with the latest model of car,’ some of the former players often claim. Griguol was also a pioneer in that he insisted, as a condition of playing in the team, that players obtained good grades in their studies, something quite unusual. Quique Domínguez and Ernesto Vecchio were also among those coaches who showed such care and sensitivity.
At the beginning of the Eighties, Diego Maradona was the prime example of one of those youngsters who ended up maintaining a huge family. His team Argentinos Juniors bought him a house so that he could get away from the villa miseria (shantytown) of Lanús. In his rented house in Barcelona, where he moved in 1982, he lived with his fiancée Claudia, and a large number of friends. He also sent a lot of money home to his family on a regular basis.
In this context we consider the Messi family in 2000 faced with the dilemma of Lionel’s hormone deficiency. Without enough money to pay for treatment it was clear that his size would remain inadequate. They had complete faith in his ability but when Newell’s wouldn’t pay for it, they took matters into their own hands; like thousands of other families in the country, they realised it was worth the risk to ensure that their son would go as far as he could in the sport he loved.
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