A few hours later I met him opposite the Mini Stadium, and I stopped him and said, ‘with your attitude you may or may not make it to the first team. But you’ll certainly become a professional, because what you have, that passion, is not normal.’
I can’t remember if he answered or not.
Leo is being interviewed on the Catalan television channel TV3. His first months at Barcelona had been far from successful. He could, at first, only play friendlies. And he got injured in the second official match with the Infantiles B side. He returned to Rosario to recover and get his career back on track before going back to Barcelona to start all over again. In the new season, he was playing more regularly and scoring.
Interviewer: We’re now going to talk with Leo Messi, one of the players from the lower ranks of the club, who scored twice in the recent game. Last season he could hardly play at all because he had an injury. I suppose you’re happy to be able to return to play with your team-mates and score goals?
Messi (his voice has not yet broken – he’s still a boy): Yes, last season I played just one game and after just a few minutes of the second I was injured, but now I’m back and …very happy.
Interviewer: Last season you weren’t able to really develop and enjoy playing for your new team. Just so our viewers know who you are, you come from Newell’s Old Boys.
Messi: Yes, Newell’s Old Boys from Rosario, Argentina.
Interviewer: Newell’s has produced some great players. Mauricio Pochettino is just one who comes to mind. He’s now with PSG and once played for Espanyol.
Messi: Sensini and Batistuta came from there too, a lot of great players have come from there.
Interviewer: For those who don’t know you, you play number 10, a classic Argentinian number 10, an ‘enganche’ as they say in your country, how would you describe yourself as a footballer?
Messi (looking away, hesitantly): Err… well, I don’t know, it’s not for me to describe myself.
Interviewer: But what is clear is that you play behind the frontmen, in the middle of the pitch, with more freedom of movement to take advantage of your characteristics.
Messi: Yes.
Interviewer: And this season. What is your objective? Consolidate with Barça? Get the form and the rhythm that you had in Argentina that perhaps you haven’t been able to find here yet?
Messi: Yes, it’s still missing, after my injury I still need to find my rhythm.
Interviewer: So these are the words of Leo Messi, one of the future stars, one of the great prospects of Barcelona FC.
Leo, it should be added, always struggled to explain what made him what he is.
Season 2001−02: Taking off
Recovered from his injuries, Leo began the 2001−02 season with the Junior B side coached by Albert Benaiges. The boys of ’87, a historic generation of players from La Masía that included, among others, Cesc Fàbregas and Gerard Piqué, shared a dressing room for two and a half seasons. This team, usually playing the 3-4-3 instilled in them at the academy, deserves special mention as representative of one of the greatest generations ever to have come out of La Masía. At the start of the season, a typical line-up might be:
Dani Plancheria; Marc Valiente, Piqué, Carlos Algar; Cesc, Rafa Blázquez, Robert Giribert, Marc Pedraza; Toni Calvo, Víctor Vázquez and Juanjo Clausi.
And Messi?
Leo’s transfer issues still hadn’t been resolved and he was still ineligible for national competitions, so he was to be in and out of Benaiges’ team, and when he did play he was placed wide on the left. ‘He loved playing as an enganche, between the lines and enjoyed coming inside,’ recalls the Junior B coach. ‘We put him wide because for the system we played it suited us better. But he had a tendency to come in between the lines, where he really wanted to be. He knew that with a couple of mazy runs, he would find himself in front of goal.’ Leo, therefore, took some time to fit in and adapt to the discipline. Marc Pedraza played in the enganche role behind Víctor Vázquez, and only when he left for Espanyol did the position go to Cesc and, sometimes to Leo. ‘He was a very quiet, calm boy, but you could read a lot from his expressions. Even when you saw him with his team-mates, he seemed quite forlorn, that’s the truth,’ recalls Benaiges.
The Junior category was divided into two parts: Junior A (17-year-olds) played in a league with Junior B of Espanyol, and the Junior B (16-year olds) of Espanyol had the A of Barcelona as rival. It was a tacit agreement between the two big Catalan clubs so that the A sides could share the titles between them. The generation of ’87 therefore found themselves competing for the league against the Espanyol Junior A side, in other words against boys a year older than them, some of whom went on to play in La Liga, players like Sergio Sanchez, today at Malaga, and Marc Torrejón (now at Racing Santander).
But for the first time in the history of the Catalan competition, a Junior B side became champions against an A side: in the twenty-third game of the season, seven games before the end, in the Damm stadium, the cules of ’87 won the league. In their last match against their city neighbours, Cesc, Piqué and Rafael Blázquez (another pearl of the Barcelona academy whose career was blighted by a terrible car accident) all scored to earn a comfortable 3–0 win. The Junior B side also won the Catalonia Cup, and, in fact, just about every title on offer apart from the Nike Cup, where they went down in the semi-finals against Atlético de Madrid.
The league win against Espanyol coincided with a change on the coaches’ bench where Benaiges handed over to a former Barcelona player who had finished his playing career at a modest club, Gramenet: Tito Vilanova had suffered a knee injury that stopped him from performing at the right level and he had been promised a team from the academy when he retired. At the start of 2002, halfway through the season, he began his work as a coach, at the same time, coincidentally, as the arrival of a communiqué from FIFA finally declaring in favour of Barcelona in their dispute with Newell’s, still reluctant to agree to Leo’s transfer without compensation from the Spanish club: FIFA agreed that a 13-year-old child should have the chance to be a professional footballer if he so desired.
Messi was enrolled into the Spanish Football Federation on 15 February. At last, one year after his arrival in Barcelona, nothing could prevent him from playing any game, in any competition. One less hurdle to jump.
‘Boys,’ said a serious Vilanova to his young charges at the end of the following day’s training session. ‘We have a new player with us.’ They all looked at each other; there was no new face … ‘Leo Messi. Leo is our signing.’ The group, to a man, cheered, applauded and congratulated the young Argentinian.
The 17th of February, Can Vidalet Stadium. Opponents, Esplugues de Llobregat. Messi starts the game on the bench. He comes on in the second half to make his debut in the national championship. He scores three goals. Final result, 1–14.
Tito began to use him as a number 9, in the middle. His first time ever in the position of false number 9, an elusive role between the lines that would make him difficult to target. Cesc, who usually played in front of the defence at number 4, moved to being the organiser behind Messi.
It has sometimes been said that the real star of that generation was Víctor Vázquez, a young man brimming with quality and goal-scoring talent who finished up playing in the first team in a match against Rubin Kazan, alongside Leo. He got injured, though, and sadly never wore the Barcelona shirt again.
‘In the 3-4-3, before Tito, Leo played wide, but with the new coach Leo and I began to play as striker or in the hole just behind; bit by bit we developed an understanding,’ explained Vázquez. ‘We worked well together. If we needed more speed up front, we’d put Messi as striker because he was the fastest, and you could pass the ball to him. If in another game the defenders were more aggressive, I’d be up front and Messi would play behind. And Cesc behind both of us! Mad!’
‘Tito was the first to play Leo in a particular position on a regular basis,’ remembers Charly Rexach. ‘Tito came to tell me that
he had a bloke in his team who was gifted, a phenomenon. “Oh, yes, I know who you mean,” I said. People sometimes think a well coordinated team happens by accident, but that one was full of very good players and Tito knew a lot about football. And it was his tactically intelligent brain as a footballer that he brought to coaching. From then on things really began to motor for Leo. When Messi was small he was entertaining to watch because he scored more goals than the rest, because he would go around three or four players, and also because he would sometimes overegg the pudding. And we thought, when he grows we’ll tell him to stop milking it and pass the ball more. But you had to let him grow his way. And Tito was the first to make him go into a game, with a footballing plan, a tactic. And Barcelona generally has one advantage: it’s better than other teams, so it can play as it wishes. So you can try players in different positions, experiment a bit more.’
‘Tito would talk to us about all the other sides as if they were excellent,’ explains Junior player Julio de Dios to Jordi Gil in his biography of Cesc, Descubriendo a Cesc Fàbregas (‘Discovering Cesc Fàbregas’). ‘He would have all the data relating to all of the other Juniors: if a forward had so many goals, or if this player was fast or had a particular technique. Speaking to us like this about our opponents meant that we were always on our toes and motivated. He gave us just enough information to make sure we weren’t overconfident, but at the same time he drove us mad with the blackboard and his strategy. None the less we beat them all!’
Tito Vilanova knew that he had something special on his hands: he loved Piqué’s leadership qualities and the quality and competitiveness of Cesc. And Blázquez, and Vázquez, and defender Marc Valiente. But Leo had something else. ‘I never saw a boy as demanding of himself as he was,’ says the former Barcelona coach. ‘Sometimes he would play a fantastic game but would then leave the pitch angry with himself because he thought he could have done better.’ That’s how practically all of them were in that Junior B side, but Leo pushed himself to the limit.
After that game at Can Vidalet, Leo played six more matches and celebrated winning the league, his first title with Barcelona.
‘You looked forward and you saw Messi,’ remembers Víctor Vázquez, who has continued with his career at Bruges. ‘And you said, “fuck me, mate, I know we’re going to do something good here”. And you also had Cesc behind you, and you said, “something’s going to happen, you’re going to pass the ball, Cesc is going to give you a good pass back, you’re going to combine well together and it’s going to finish up a goal”. We were so much better than any other side. Never have I seen a team as superior as we were at the lower levels. Sometimes at walking pace we would win 10–0 and the gaffer used to say: “hey, do some running!” And we used to answer him: “What have we got to run for?” It’s just that it wasn’t necessary, you passed the ball, and in three or four passes you were where you wanted to be.’
‘They were an extraordinary group, with some very competitive players, true winners. At just fifteen or sixteen years old they had the maturity of people of twenty-two or twenty-three,’ says coach Alex García, who inherited the group from Tito the following year. ‘Everyone knew that Messi, Piqué and Cesc were different. They were the mainstays of the team and they accepted it. It’s easy to say now with hindsight, but the fact is you could see that no other team had players of this quality.’ Cesc is honest: ‘In any case, if at that moment they had told us that one day all three of us would form part of the Barcelona first team, the three of us would have said that that was impossible. Perhaps one or two, but three?’
‘I said to Leo one day that I could quite happily sit down on the bench and leave him to enjoy his football; the truth is that I saw a Maradona in him,’ recognises Tito.
‘Leo had qualities that were totally different from ours,’ recalls Cesc. ‘And as much as they say that I was good, or that Piqué was this, or whoever was that … the truth is that we all had characteristics very similar to all the others. We were better, because we were better, but we didn’t have anything markedly different; he, though, had qualities that set him apart. You know he’s going to go to your left, but he still goes past you. You see it a thousand times on television and you say “how is it that they don’t get the ball off him and he always goes to the left?” Even knowing and anticipating that you still can’t. Seriously, I’m telling you, he is gifted.’
‘I was the director of the Villarreal football school.’ This is Juan Carlos Garrido, the former boss of the Castellon club. ‘Our paths would cross when he played against my sides and I remember that he used to win games on his own. There was a tremendous difference between him and the rest of the players. The first time I saw him was at a summer tournament organised by Villarreal: for 14-years-olds. The final of this tournament was between Barça and Villarreal. Half-time arrived and Villarreal was winning 1–0 I think, and then Messi came on in the second half. The game finished 1–3. Messi scored all three goals. It was like a revolution, something extraordinary.’
The president, Joan Gaspart, would occasionally spend Saturday mornings by the pitches next to the Camp Nou, watching whatever match happened to be going on, either by himself or accompanied by Charly Rexach. ‘I never said “that number 10 is one of a kind and is going to be the best player in the world”. I never said it. That he was very good, yes, but no more. I never said it, and it never entered my head that he would get to where he has got. But he got the ball and he would do things different from the rest. And it was strange because he was a very shy young man, but when you saw him on the field he was the leader of the pack. And, what’s more, he liked to milk it. If he could dribble round three, better than two. He was fast and there was something “hard-nosed” about him – he wouldn’t run away from the physical battle, wouldn’t get scared after a tackle. He was one of those types of boys who leaves a great impression on you.’
That youth team trained, like the majority of the sides in the academy, on the pitches next to the Mini Stadium, about 500 metres from the Camp Nou and the space next to La Masía where the senior players trained. Rarely did their paths cross, however, even though three of them were Leo’s fellow countrymen: Juan Román Riquelme, Roberto Bonano and Javier Saviola.
Riquelme had tremendous quality, an attacking midfielder who dictated the pace of the game, albeit sometimes with a certain coldness. But he played at the Camp Nou. With the big boys. And with the national side. Juan Román was, then, in Leo’s eyes, one of the greats. When their paths did cross, at barbecues organised by Minguella at his home in Barcelona, for instance, Leo would somehow become even smaller and he would stare at him with his head bowed, eyes like saucers, the top of his head just reaching Riquelme’s chin – with the apparent awe of a penitent in the presence of his god. For their part, Saviola and Bonano would stop and ask him how things were going and from time to time invite him for an ice cream and chat for a while. When Leo needed them, following a stroke of bad luck the following season, they were there for him.
FC Barcelona’s first team was, a year after the departure of Luis Figo and Pep Guardiola, suffering from lack of leadership. The money that came in from the sale of the Portuguese midfielder had been spent badly on players who failed to make the grade (Emmanuel Petit, Marc Overmars, Alfonso Pérez, Gerard López), and others who made little impact, like Riquelme and Saviola. Carlos Rexach, on the sidelines, never really managed to convince the fans, and the team, with Rivaldo and Kluivert as its stars, were left the wrong side of the title doors, finishing fourth in the league and ending up as Champions League semi-finalists, having lost to Madrid. The institutional crisis, with Joan Gaspart receiving little support from the faithful, would eventually translate into five years without a single league title.
In those early days, Leo still changed in a corner of the dressing room, away from the rest. His team-mates kept their distance, not knowing what to say to him or how to draw him out. There seemed to be an invisible, protective wall around him.
Dur
ing breaks in training, Leo would have a drink of water by himself, a ball tucked under his arm or resting by his feet. Always near. He entertained himself with little touches on the ball while the others talked about their plans for the day, or about school, or about their girlfriends.
He was the first to shower, when there was no one else in the dressing room. Or the last. But normally he’d get there first, change in five minutes and then rush to meet his father who was usually waiting for him outside. His team-mates thought he didn’t want to shower with them at the same time, that he was wary of them. Too wary.
Sometimes he said goodbye, sometimes he didn’t. Usually it was a raise of the hand, and a quiet ‘see you tomorrow’.
It wouldn’t be long before the veterans in the group approached the new boy from Argentina.
Unsurprisingly, Gerard Piqué was the first to approach him. A typical practical joker, he hid his clothes while he was showering, moving them to another hook. Leo returned with a towel around his waist and couldn’t find his things. He became nervous, agitated. Five or six of the boys began laughing but they quickly returned his clothes before things got out of hand. ‘Where are you from? What brings you to these parts?’ asked Piqué. ‘You can talk to us, nothing’s going to happen to you, we won’t bite.’
‘Sorry, I’m just quiet,’ replied Leo.
Piqué had opened the door for him. From that moment on he spoke more. But not much more.
Messi Page 19