The former Chelsea footballer immediately recognised the ascendancy of the group that had just won the two big competitions: the squad revolved around Ronaldinho’s eternal smile. ‘When Ronnie spoke about football, and he did so often, you could see a very attentive Messi, with the adoring look of a fan. We went to the United States in pre-season and, when Ronnie got off the coach, it was as if a film star had arrived. He was a real man; and Leo, a boy who admired the best player in the world, and who played in the same team as him,’ remembers Gudjohnsen, who is still surprised that they invited him to join their table. ‘It was the jokers’ table. Silvinho was my translator, he would explain all the rubbish they used to say.’
After the year of success, Barcelona lost a certain competitiveness in the 2006−07 season. At the start it was unnoticeable, but the departure of Larsson, Gabri and Van Bommel and a reduction in the performance levels of the dressing-room leaders (especially Ronaldinho and Deco) had an effect. Henk ten Cate leaving for Ajax also contributed to the team’s gradual break-up.
Rijkaard’s assistant’s influence was crucial. The league title that had just been won was the result of talent, most certainly, but measures had also been taken early to prevent the team declining. ‘If you want the key to that league title and what came after, study the match against Betis at the Benito Villamarín Stadium closely’: that was the challenge launched by ten Cate in the conversation with Gio van Bronckhorst. ‘You will see the reason why we won the league and the Champions League. Do you remember, mate?’
Barcelona had made a lacklustre start to the season, drawing against Alavés and Valencia, losing against Atlético de Madrid, and the only win so far had been against Mallorca. Just before they then went to Seville for the encounter ten Cate talks about, Frank Rijkaard trained behind closed doors with his best eleven. Ronaldinho and Deco wore first XI bibs. But in the end he did not pick either of them to travel.
Until that moment, the two stars had only been out of the team because of injury. The dressing room shook.
Officially Rijkaard spoke about rotation: ‘Ronaldinho and Deco have played four games in ten days and I’ve thought about giving them a rest, because there is a crucial match on Tuesday [Udinese at the Camp Nou] and they are very important players. I want them to relax and then, on Sunday, train again.’
The real reason was different: signs that part of the dressing room resented the two players’ behaviour had been brought to Rijkaard’s attention. Deco would fly to Brazil frequently and was often absent from training. Ronaldinho was not as professional as he should be. Some of the players got annoyed, and the group comprising the Dutch, the Catalans and Eto’o made ten Cate aware of their discontent. They had just won the first of two league titles and it was necessary to rectify the situation and set an example, or ‘the group will split up’, Rijkaard was told. He responded immediately by leaving the two players out of the Betis match.
Henk ten Cate stated the obvious to the group on the way to Seville: ‘Guys, we have to win whatever happens.’ Rijkaard had never before taken such momentous disciplinary action, and he had to be backed up by a win. In that match, Eto’o missed a penalty. It was 1–1 for the best part of an hour, but then the Cameroonian scored twice, the second time nicking the ball from Maxi López and shooting. ‘You have to think quickly in the six-yard box,’ Eto’o told him. Messi did not play in that match.
The season ended well, with the two big titles in the bag, but the negative dynamic of the ‘stars’ continued on into the new one. Messi was the only light at the end of a tunnel getting darker by the day: he was the only player who had improved from the previous season and who continued his rise in the team. He was suffering fewer injuries, and only missed a week following an ankle strain suffered during Real Madrid’s 2–0 win in the clásico at the Bernabéu, a defeat that began to suggest that Barcelona, also annihilated 3–0 by Sevilla in the European Super Cup in August, did not fare well in the important matches.
But in November, against Zaragoza, Messi fractured the fifth metatarsal in his left foot. This time it was not a question of lifestyle. Broken bones are down to bad luck: he was out of action for just over two and a half months.
‘Not being able to help the team is infuriating. You’re in the dressing room with them, you share the time before the match but you know they will go out to play and you won’t,’ he said to Ramiro Martín in December 2006.
Leo went back to a Barcelona team that kept failing in the big games. They lost against Rafa Benítez’s Liverpool in the last sixteen of the Champions League. In that European duel, Benítez knew that he had to cut out Messi’s diagonal runs and put Alvaro Arbeloa at left-back precisely because he was right-footed, as well as a good defender. A clever move. Leo was efficiently marked out of the game.
There then followed the return clásico league fixture, on 10 March 2007 at the Camp Nou, another opportunity to recover from their European hangover. A long-haired Messi, who had played impressively in various matches since coming back from his metatarsal injury but found it hard to score, took the reins, while Ronaldinho was gradually fading into the background.
It showed the Argentinian’s willingness to take responsibility as he outshone even Eto’o, who usually demanded all the attention against Real Madrid. Ronnie was insignificant and the Cameroonian was replaced at half-time when Rijkaard decided to shuffle the team as a result of Oleguer’s sending-off in the first half.
He decided that ‘the Flea’, hogging the touchline, was creating enough danger. He did not do anything wrong: he was choosing the right diagonal runs, he destabilised the right-back, Miguel Torres, with threatening duels on the wing, and he knew when to wait for the ball, as he did for the first goal to equalise after Ruud van Nistelrooy’s opener.
Eto’o had released the ball to the left where Leo found himself alone, with sufficient space to manoeuvre, and his shot flew into the far corner, beating Iker Casillas.
Leo raised his shirt. Underneath he wore a T-shirt with the message ‘Fuerza, tío’ (strength, uncle). ‘I dedicated it to my uncle who has lost his father. He is my godfather, my second father, and I wanted to send him all my support from here,’ he explained after the match.
Van Nistelrooy put Real Madrid back in front with a penalty, but Leo continued to shine as the team pushed over to his side. The equaliser began with some classic play by Ronaldinho down the left; moving into the penalty area, he played a one-two with Eto’o, but the Brazilian’s shot was turned away by Casillas. The ball fell at Messi’s feet and he smashed it home with aplomb: 2–2, 27 minutes into the game.
The sending-off of the Catalan defender Oleguer occurred in one of the most electrifying first halves of a clásico. Valdés extraordinarily denied Van Nistelrooy his hat-trick, but Sergio Ramos put Real Madrid in front for the third time and 90 minutes were up. In stoppage time, a Ronaldinho pass found Messi in the hole, but surrounded by opposition players. With his first touch he started a diagonal run and centre-back Iván Helguera tried to halt his progress by throwing himself to the ground. Messi explained the rest in the press area:
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It all happened very quickly. Helguera was in my way, I tried to get past him, I did so and found myself one on one with Casillas …
He shot across the goal, beating the Real Madrid keeper.
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What did you think when you saw the ball go in?
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We had enough time to win the game, but in the end it was not possible. It was a shame because we had the strength to do it after the final equaliser.
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What did you say to each other as you celebrated?
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We said we had a bit more time to try to win it. We were at the Camp Nou so we had to win.
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Did you think at any point that the match was lost?
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It was complicated. On top of that, we had just played Liverpool and were tired.
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&nb
sp; Why did you repeatedly kiss the badge after scoring your third goal?
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Because I owe Barcelona a lot for everything they did for me at the time.
‘The Messi match I remember best was the clásico at the Camp Nou,’ recalls Silvinho. ‘We celebrated the last goal together, because when he scored I was the closest to him, and we celebrated it without words. I mean, we yelled, but there were no words.’
‘For me, today, Messi is above any other player. He has an extra gear,’ acknowledged Eto’o on a night when he took a step down from the pedestal.
Gudjohnsen tells his own story from another perspective and with affection: ‘without the run I made down the right, he wouldn’t have had as much space for the third goal, eh!’ That match witnessed the beginning of Leo’s transition from adolescence to maturity. ‘In that season Messi played without pressure,’ says Gudjohnsen. ‘All the critics were looking the other way, at other players. The easiest thing in football is to be a talented player whereas the most complicated is reaffirming that talent with the passing of time. When a player like that appears, there are always excuses if things do not go well for him in a match or for a month. The difficult part is for that talent to manifest itself regularly. Leo seemed to be ready to take on that responsibility.’
‘Great players show it in the important matches,’ says ex-president Joan Laporta. ‘And Leo has never hidden, especially against Real Madrid. His two big rivalries have always been with Espanyol in the youth team and with Real Madrid in the first team. He knows that those matches are beautiful to play in and what is expected of him. And he is delighted when they come round.’
‘Losing against Real Madrid is a fucker. I remember that game, which we were losing and I scored the equalising third goal,’ Leo told Luis Martín in El País at the end of 2007. ‘As a culé I always want to beat Real Madrid. On top of that, that match marked my career. I had just come back from injury, I wasn’t putting away chances but from that day on more and more went in and I played more regularly.’
Messi scored seven goals in his first eight games against Real Madrid. And some years later, in March 2013, he managed to equalise Alfredo Di Stéfano’s record as top scorer in matches between the two big rivals with 18 goals. Leo gradually confirmed himself as a clásico specialist as time went on, which equates to being a big-game player.
The draw left Barcelona above Real Madrid and Sevilla who had started the matchday as table-toppers. Nineteen-year-old Leo had forgotten the sour taste of the Champions League final in which he had been unable to feature, and the injury which prevented him from going to the World Cup in Germany in his best shape. He was all over the front pages.
The Messi era was beginning.
I wait for the defender’s movement, I play with him. Once I see what he does, I feint to go one way then go the other. I keep looking at my opponent’s feet, not the ball. I know where the ball is. I know it is there …
(Leo Messi, 2007)
The club rewarded his progress with a new seven-year contract in March 2007. The financial remuneration was considerable. He went from €1.8 million a year to €6.5 in 2006−07, although part of the increase corresponded to payments from the previous season which had run over into the new campaign. The following season he would earn €4.5 million and it would rise progressively to €6.2 million in 2014, with the same €150 million release clause.
His impact on the pitch was being reflected in the figures.
In the closing stages of what was a mixed season, Barcelona reached the Coppe del Rey semi-final against a modest Getafe team. The result in the first leg (a spectacular 5–2) left Barcelona on the brink of the final, but that encounter will be remembered for the Maradona-like goal scored by Leo Messi, twelve seconds of skill, bursting pace, trickery, five defenders left in his wake, seventy yards that would lead to a moment of posterity.
It is the twenty-ninth minute, Messi gets the ball in midfield in his own half near the centre circle. He moves away from Paredes and Nacho and starts running towards goal.
‘I am on the centre line, I dribble past the first defender. I don’t nutmeg him even if it looks as if I do. I do nutmeg the second one, though,’ Leo Messi explained in 2007 in the Argentinian TV programme Sin Cassette.
The run continues.
‘I see Eto’o opening up the pitch …’
Centre-back Alexis cannot stop him, Belenguer closes in on him, but before he can stop him Leo gets away. He continues his run between the two of them.
‘When I get to the edge of the box, I feint to go to my left, the defender falls for it and I go between both centre-backs as they leave a little space between them.’
Now the goalkeeper, Luis García.
His friend, Roberto ‘the Duck’ Abbondanzieri, former Boca Juniors keeper, was on the bench and a few days later he said to Leo. ‘Thank God it wasn’t me!’
He goes round him to the right and, from an almost impossible angle, lifts the ball over Cotelo with the last of his thirteen touches.
‘The ball ended up in front of me, in the right place and I dummied as if to put it into the goal, but I took it on my left, the touch was a bit too heavy and the ball went away from me. I thought, “it is going out”. I was about to hit it with my right foot when I saw a player going to ground so I lifted the ball slightly.’
Maradona, World Cup ’86, against England. Messi scores.
‘When I was a kid, I scored a couple of goals like that, but perhaps that was my best yet.’ Leo scored his best goal with his right foot.
Silvinho: ‘I was in the stands for that game. Bernd Schuster was the Getafe coach. Him running away with his long hair, dribbling, and running and getting close to the box …’
Gudjohnsen: ‘I put my hands on my head. You can see it on television. There was a moment on the pitch where I thought, “God, I’m on the pitch when a goal that’s going to be talked about forever has just been scored. It is Maradona against England all over again!”’
Silvinho: ‘… an amazing goal. The Camp Nou was on its feet, and, well … I was dumbstruck.’
Gudjohnsen: ‘And the guy starts celebrating as if it was nothing, and on the pitch we were all speechless. Us and our opponents. I started shouting at him, “incredible, incredible!!!”’
Juanjo Brau: ‘You see Xavi or Ronaldinho take a tenth of a second longer to do things because they are thinking. Messi doesn’t think about what he is going to do. He just does it.’
Andrés Iniesta: ‘It was a spectacular goal, the perfect combination of dribbling, driving at players, skipping past rivals and the final dummy is very complicated. It reminds you of the Maradona goal mainly because of his starting position.’
Deco: ‘As soon as we went into the dressing room I told him that his goal was like Maradona’s.
Juanjo Brau: ‘He used to say to me that he didn’t want to copy Maradona, that he doesn’t think about what he is going to do, it comes to him naturally.’
Deco: ‘These are the goals that go down in history. It is the most beautiful goal I’ve ever seen, and, don’t forget, I’ve seen Ronaldo, Maradona and Ronaldinho score live. Today’s goal is perfect. I thought he would try a one-two when he got close to the area, but …’
Silvinho: ‘In the dressing room he didn’t joke about it, he didn’t say, “okay, I’ve done the Maradona goal, what’s next?” Nothing of the sort. Leo respects his rivals, his team-mates, he’s not one for poking fun or boasting. He follows his own very strict code of conduct. Not even once in five years did he say, “Ah! Did you see how I dribbled past that one? Look at the screamer I scored …”, never, ever. We did though!’
Juanjo Brau: ‘And when he ends up scoring he doesn’t think it was like Maradona’s. It comes later, when they all tell him that, and they call him from Argentina saying, “what a commotion you’ve caused”. But he still doesn’t attach much importance to it.’
Silvinho: ‘We would shout at him, trying to sound like a television commentator,
“what a goal, what an amazing goal”, and he would laugh.’
Deco: ‘I was so happy for him. He is incredibly humble and oozes quality. At eighteen he was at Barcelona and at nineteen he scores goals like that. That’s impressive.’
Gudjohnsen: ‘It was a complicated period but Messi appeared at various stages in the season to our benefit. People started to look at him through different eyes after that goal against Getafe. Ah, so he does this with the big boys! He has dribbled past five or six top division professionals! It had yet to be seen if he could transfer those moments of individual brilliance, that only he could perform, into a full ninety-minute game, but the doubts were gradually disappearing. Can we live without Ronaldinho? Well, yes, they started to say. And he started to accept everything that lay before him, as though it was all perfectly natural. And to grow, to grow, to grow.’
Carlos Salvador Bilardo (Argentinian coach of the 1986 World Cup-winning squad): ‘I still think the Maradona goal is the best one. Players were continuously coming at him, and the centre-backs were ranked like steps on a ladder: first Butcher and then Fenwick. Messi runs for thirty-five yards and no one gets near him. That is why he touches the ball more with his right foot, his weaker one. He toe-pokes it, and dribbles with his left foot. It is very difficult for the defenders to kick him or stop him because he is almost jumping and running very fast at the same time. In the end, the centre-backs prefer to hold their line and wait for him, which makes it easier for Leo.’
Maradona: ‘I’d say that Messi is a phenomenon, who has no limits, but the goal that I scored, apart from being more beautiful, was against England in the quarter-finals of a World Cup. Messi scored his against Getafe, who were playing the offside rule. It was an incredible goal, but let’s not go overboard.’
Messi Page 36