Jorge Messi gives Rexach’s contribution much more relevance. He never got to know Rexach in those first few months, but he has always admitted that if Leo is playing for Barcelona today it is for two reasons: the insistence of Charly, and because Leo and him preferred to stay in Barcelona when his elder daughter had to go back to Argentina as she was unable to adapt.
Jorge and Charly know each other now. They met, by coincidence, at the 2011 European Cup final at Wembley. As big as the stadium is, Rexach found himself sitting in the stands next to Jorge. ‘Sometimes I get embarrassed when I hear some of the things I hear, when they come up to me and say I discovered Messi. It doesn’t make me cross, but I think, fuck me, all those years playing football and now I’m only going to be remembered for discovering Messi, when, as I’ve said many times, Messi discovered himself. And I was saying this to his father.’ Jorge laughed, listening to Charly as he kept repeating, ‘what courage from the boy, what courage from you, but especially from the boy!’
‘What cojones [balls] is what I say. Messi’s triumph was his, and his alone,’ Rexach insists.
But before the celebrations, the successes, there was more to pay. So it was in December 2000, at a time when Jorge and Rexach still did not know each other, that the phone rang in the Messi house. ‘Charly has signed a piece of paper,’ Jorge was told. The napkin was enough to placate the Messis even though they were a bit surprised to hear that something like this had been used, especially by a club that had always boasted about its clear junior football philosophy and solid structure. In truth, Barcelona were entering unknown territory. Now it was time to give the agreement shape, with all its variables, promises and more than one unpleasant surprise.
In January, Newell’s wanted to register Leo with the Argentine Federation because, and this is key, ‘the Flea’ was not yet registered to the Rosario club. Argentinian clubs do not request this licence until the footballer has reached the age of 13 or 14. Had NOB taken this step, the matter would have become complicated: the Rosario club could have insisted on a transfer fee. The confirmation of the deal was, therefore, a matter of urgency.
Barcelona had to agree to the Messis’ requests, which were accepted by Rexach: a house for the family, travel costs and a job for Jorge Messi, partly because he had to leave Acindar, and partly to fulfil the requirements of FIFA, who forbid the international transfer of minors under the age of 18 unless they are accompanied by their parents.
Leo was not going to live at La Masía where the youngsters from outside Barcelona were based and where a safety net is created by fellow exiles. Another rare, unheard-of demand. ‘From the first moment, his parents – and I can understand this – wanted to live with him and look after their son from close by. There was no other player who said: I’m coming with all my family, and I’m going to install myself in Barcelona …’ says Joan Gaspart, the club president who gave the final go-ahead for the signing, although no one gives him credit for this. This is but one of the many small dramas that exist in the world of football: his image as vice-president over a period of 22 years and of president without any title wins over two and a half years, during which the institution that is Barcelona suffered a severe identity crisis, left him stripped of all recognition.
In the first team, the unpopular Louis Van Gaal made enemies of anyone who doubted him. The Dutchman, who never knew how to explain his projects, was none the less key to the progress of the club for his work behind closed doors, for his courageous implementation of his methods, for his gamble on the academy and for his insistence on positional play from which so many trainers after him would benefit. To many Louis was charmless, and he did not always make the best of signings: Juan Román Riquelme never fitted in, nor did Javier Saviola, and there were many more. It was a turbulent time in the history of FC Barcelona, an era described by Jorge Valdano as one of ‘historic urgency’ to return to better times: Madrid won everything with Luis Figo as their star, signed from Barcelona in the summer of 2000. ‘I have brought a lot of players here who haven’t worked out: Giovanni, Rochemback. When a player fails, it is the president’s fault, even though the president doesn’t make the signing, but merely takes the advice of coaches, the ones who make the decisions. When a signing doesn’t work out, the coaches disappear,’ says Gaspart.
The information received about Leo was clear: ‘An excellent ability to dribble, super-fast with the ball at his feet, low centre of gravity that gives him great balance on the move, skilful, electric, powerful for his age, with good powers of recovery – he can do eight to ten sprints every game – likes to try for goal often, a goal-scorer, intelligent and mentally fast, occasionally a bit too greedy, although in his case this is a virtue because of his directness, intuition and versatility in any attacking position.’ With just one snag: ‘he is very small, but he is undergoing growth hormone treatment.’
Another expense for Barcelona, the treatment.
The boy did not come cheap. That’s what the president told Joaquim Rifé, the director of the junior football academy. The budget for the academy at that time was around €13 million and that was tight, every age group had an amount allotted to it and Messi broke the budget. That was one of the main reasons for the heated exchanges before and after the paper-napkin saga, the highs, the lows, the tension. ‘Why so many meetings?’ asked Rifé. Rexach supported him. Probably because they served to delay making a decision. Jorge Messi told Rifé, ‘my son is going to be a great footballer for Barcelona and will work out very cheap for you’.
In those meetings between coaches and the board, the president would insist that he was not about to start thinking about a 13-year-old boy; what he had to do was sign two or three players to beat Madrid. No one could have imagined that, three years later, Leo would be making his debut for the first team. ‘If you sign him, you will be making a mark for the future,’ urged Rexach. It was a powerful argument that tends both to impress and seduce most directors.
Gaspart, however, explains it another way. ‘Charly was close to me, the president, he was the man I trusted, because he’s a bloke who understands football and footballers. We met at the club, in my office, as we did regularly. We didn’t just talk about Messi, we talked about various things and at some point Charly told me there was an exceptional player who we could not let escape. “This is very simple – whatever you say, goes,” I said. He said, “Are you in agreement about setting up special accommodation for him?” I said, “Do you think he is something out of the ordinary?” “Yes.” “Well, go ahead”.’
Some of the coaches advised against the signing, but, more than any, it was certain members of the board who did not want him. The director of the youth system, Joan Lacueva, was possible the only one on the board who strongly supported the signing. He trusted in Rexach so he started to build what Charly described as a ‘made-to-measure suit’ for Leo, a sort of legal support for that contractual napkin.
On his return from Barcelona, Leo played for the Newell’s tenth team (another name for the juniors aged between 12 and 13) under the direction of Adrián Coria, who now works with Tata Martino as Barcelona’s match analyst. He won the Apertura (or Opening, a league competition even though it only includes the first half of the calendar) of the tenth division and ended up being the leading goalscorer.
Most of those around ‘the Flea’ could not have imagined what was going to happen, but some of them knew something was afoot. Rosario businessman Néstor Casal remembers one day, while having a meal with Jorge Messi, Leo’s dad told him that, after a great performance by his son, he was approached by someone who said he was a representative of Barcelona and that he wanted to speak to him. That day, Jorge kept the man’s visiting card.
A little later father said to son. ‘Hey! Can you believe it? You’d be making the same journey as Maradona! Imagine that you go to Barcelona and you come back later and finish your career at Newell’s!’
The dream was close.
Quique Domínguez:
In Oc
tober 2000 I was waiting for the kids to arrive and I saw Jorge Messi, who always distanced himself from the others, approaching. I greeted him: ‘Hello, Jorge, how are you?’ and I remember his exact words, and how surprised I was when he said, ‘enjoy these next two months because I’m taking him away’. ‘Where are you taking him? You’re not taking him anywhere!’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m taking him away,’ he repeated. ‘Anyway,’ I said jokingly, ‘as long as you’re not taking him to Central (because that really would be a betrayal) then that’s fine.’ When training had finished I looked for him to ask more about it but he had already left. The following Saturday we were playing away. I saw Jorge and I stopped him: ‘What did you say to me the other day about taking Leo away?’ ‘Yes,’ he told me, ‘I’m taking him away. For the last two years we’ve been paying the cost of his treatment with the health cover I have with Acindar and with the help of ASIMRA [the Association of Supervisors of the Metalworking Industry], but as I have no health cover any more, they have stopped paying, and I can’t afford it any longer.’ ‘Is that why you’re taking him away?’ And he said to me, ‘No, I went to speak with Pupo and he told me there was no budget for this.’ Pupo was the technical director of the juniors at Newell’s. ‘Pupo said this?’ I asked. ‘And what did you say?’ ‘That if it was like that, I’d take him away, and he said to me: whatever you decide.’
Sometimes decisions are taken about certain issues for reasons that don’t appear obvious but are important none the less. In Rosario, people were talking: Pupo and Jorge never seemed to have got on. It all started with Rodrigo, Leo’s older brother and a number 8 of some quality, who had missed the chance to play for one of the sides that the Argentine Federation put together occasionally when the club made an error. He was transferred to Central Córdoba against his wishes – he would no longer play for his beloved Newell’s again. Two dreams ruined. Why was Pupo not more supportive of the Messis? Perhaps he was unwilling to take the pressure put on him for Leo to stay? Sometimes those in charge think they know more than anybody else. But it isn’t always like that. Some people will not accept being told what to do. That might well have been the reason, but no one is really sure.
‘Newell’s sent Rodrigo to a club at the arse end of nowhere, with a completely different training regime,’ Domínguez says now. ‘I got the impression that Pupo made it a personal issue when he told Jorge there was no money for the treatment. When people at Newell’s found out he had said there was no budget they could not believe it: he’s a moron! A madman! they would say.’
Jorge had spent six months weighing up all the options, whether or not it was worth changing their entire life, and spoke to every member of his family. One day he sat all of them around the dining-room table. Rodrigo was 20, Matías, 18, Leo, 13. María Sol was five. He was looking for everyone’s approval before giving his answer to Barcelona. Italy was still an option, but Spain created fewer doubts, was more appealing: since Leo had heard from Barça he hadn’t thought of any other club. He asked them one by one, including the little girl. There were many things that had to be discussed, not just Leo.
It wasn’t only that he had enough talent to triumph with the backing of an institution that offered the biggest guarantees and better financial arrangements. Other things had to be taken into consideration: the Messis wanted Rodrigo to continue playing football. At the time Central Córdoba were fighting for promotion to the first division, and Jorge believed he had enough ability to earn his living as a footballer in Spain. Plus, Matías and María Sol would grow up in a country that appeared more steady, with greater chances for the future than those offered by their own country. They were talking of GOING TO EUROPE, in capital letters, something that many wanted to do but didn’t have the chance to.
Leo had said around that time to Rodrigo that he wanted to win the Ballon d’Or. ‘Without this crazy willingness to give it everything and to progress, his supreme talent would have been pointless,’ his brother says today. No one in the family wanted to impede his progress.
Yes or no?
Yes, they’d go. Yes. Everyone would go to Barcelona. No balls, no glory!!
That is, if a final agreement actually came from Barcelona.
On 8 January 2001 a decisive step was taken. At a dinner in the Catalan capital attended by Joan Lacueva and Rifé, the club finalised the contract details: the player would earn 100 million pesetas a year (€600,000) as well as receive payments for image rights, another new concept for a junior players’ contract. In addition, they would pay the Messi family money to rent an apartment and about seven million pesetas (€42,000) in annual wages for Jorge – he was going to work for Barna Porters, a company owned by Barcelona which supplied security staff for the club.
As soon as Messi signed the contract, the club would start paying for the hormonal treatment that, it was calculated, would increase his height to 1.67 metres. He ended up reaching 1.69 metres.
Seven days later, Charly Rexach was writing an official letter, complete with club seal, to Jorge Messi pledging to honour everything that had been agreed with his representatives in Barcelona. Three days after that, Joan Lacueva sent another letter confirming the financial agreement.
With ‘yes’ from Barcelona and ‘yes’ from the Messi family, nothing could stop the agreement going ahead. Surely Rosario was to be a thing of the past. But there was one thing left to do.
Jorge and a friend walked 75 kilometres to give thanks for the conclusion of the negotiations at the Shrine of the Virgin of St Nicolas. They left at five in the morning and took 14 hours to make the journey. A barefoot Leo joined them for the last 800 metres. They returned by car. With a big bottle of water. Dead from the heat and the exertion.
On 15 February 2001, after weeks of preparation and tension, a rush to get passports, travel authorisation and suitcases, the Messis began their journey to Barcelona.
‘Leo disappeared from Newell’s at the end of the championship,’ Quique Domínguez remembers. ‘Ernesto Bocha, one of the coaches, called me and asked about Leo, but I didn’t know where he was. Nobody knew anything, I swear, nobody knew a thing! I told him that they’d called me asking for Leo, but that I didn’t have the faintest idea what had happened to him. And he said, he’s not in Rosario any more, because I have spoken to members of his family and friends and nobody knows where they are, but they are not at home. Four, five months go by and Ernesto calls me and says: “guess where Leo is? In Barcelona.” And automatically I thought of Barcelona in Ecuador, the closest one, because I couldn’t get my head around the idea that he had travelled to the European one. For us, Europe still remains a faraway place, distant, and not just physically. Then he cleared it up for me: “no, Barcelona, Spain.” “Seriously?” “What’s he doing there?” He told me, “he’s going to FC Barcelona and they’re going to pay for the treatment.”
‘Hey, brilliant, I said, much better. This made me very happy, very happy. We knew where he had landed, we knew that he wasn’t at a club that was going to use him, as is the norm in football – they give you a contract and then they use you. Barcelona are light years away from us. Barcelona are the kind of club that gives you everything, but then don’t use you: “you have your beliefs, your dreams, your way of doing things, we will pay for your treatment, we will protect you.” That is what he was going to get. We were told that they had also given work to the father; but they probably said to him, “well, work out later if you will actually go to work or not”. Both parties planted and watered the tree and now they both share the benefits. Thank God he landed where he did.
‘I assume,’ insists Quique Domínguez, ‘that the Newell’s president would have said, “How? Leo Messi played for Newell’s? Let’s go and ask Pupo. Pupo! Was it you? Yes? Get out then! How could you let a player like that go?” It wasn’t that he, Pupo, didn’t see him. Pupo used to watch the training sessions! He was the technical director of the youth set-up. He was the one who decided where players went, not the coach; it was he who decided. The p
resident had enough with the first division, I am sure he didn’t know Leo.’
Many in Rosario repeat the story that, actually, the president of Newell’s, Eduardo López, did nothing to stop the departure of Lionel either. ‘No problem, Messi can go. We keep the best one: Gustavo Rodas.’ Rodas made his debut at 16 for Newell’s, wore the number 10 with the Under-17 national team and was champion of the South American tournament in Bolivia. He was called up by Argentina again but did not join them. He couldn’t settle at NOB and tried his fortune at Tiro Federer, El Porvenir, Cúcuta (very modest semi-amateur clubs) and moved to Peru, where he played for Bolognesi and León de Huánuco. Nobody knows where he is now. Perhaps Rodas could have filled the void left by Leo in terms of talent, but, since when has too much talent been a problem?
Eduardo van der Kooy, journalist and co-author of Cien años de vida en rojo y negro (‘A Hundred Years in Red and Black’) with Rafael Bielsa, the brother of the well-known coach Marcelo, goes further: ‘Leo left Newell’s because the mafia that controlled the club during that era did not believe that something so great, so brilliant, could be contained within a physique so small. He left because they abandoned him when his body needed both spiritual and material assistance. But Newell’s still consider him theirs and Leo feels that it is his club. Oh, that he could return, albeit with grey hair.’
Newell’s is a historical institution traditionally nourished by its junior ranks, in whom they take great pride. But they are also exporters, a club that sells those academy players they look after with so much care. In 1988, NOB finished as champions, having produced every player who started that season, every substitute and all the coaches, the only time this has happened in the history of Argentinian football. ‘And from that point on, a process of fourteen years of destruction began, a personal project that had the help of the judiciary and other parts of society that permitted one man to destroy the club.’ That is how one well-known, but on this occasion anonymous, Rosarian refers to Eduardo López, the then president of Newell’s and head of gambling syndicates in Rosario, with casinos and other businesses, some of which brought him to the attention of the police. Others talk about more direct responsibility: for example, Sergio Almirón, former Newell’s left-winger, 1986 World Cup winner and sporting director during that era. When Jorge called him looking for help, he was either unavailable or the appointment would be cancelled at the last minute, or he would give him 40 pesos for a treatment that cost twenty-five times that amount. And this only when Almirón was feeling generous. Another member of the Argentinian club who never supported Leo.
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