Ronaldinho had also made his debut in the first division as a 17-year-old so, as Messi says, ‘he knew what I was going through’. Once accepted as one of the group, Leo, Ronnie and Deco would enjoy playing with a little ball, the size of a tennis ball. Keepy-uppy with a twist before the training session. If Ronnie managed to come up with a new way to hit the ball or play with it, he used to look at Leo, smiling. ‘He would make a face that would say, “did you see that? I have a new challenge”,’ Messi remembers in the Sin Cassette programme. ‘He would practise and a couple of days later he would do that touch or move to perfection. I am not like that, I don’t practise things. I feel ashamed if I try different things and they don’t come off.’
But the law of football is implacable. One day you are good, the next you are past it. A star player’s response before the inevitable decline often defines his personality. The coach bides his time and encourages the player’s defiant side in order to squeeze the last drop of blood out of him.
But Ronaldinho was not responding to that and the growing, and deserved, criticism that the Brazilian was receiving hurt Leo. ‘What Ronaldinho has to put up with is not normal,’ Leo said back then. ‘The best thing we could do would be to leave him in peace. Much is spoken about Ronnie and it isn’t always about what happens on the pitch. I don’t like that. We all have ups and downs, many matches are played, many minutes. Ronnie is an example to everyone, it is not easy to be the best player in the world and to stay in such high spirits as he does.’
‘Leo was a teenager,’ comments Joan Laporta, ‘who was playing alongside the best player in the world. Just imagine that. They promote you to the first team and the best player in the world realises that you, the new boy, are actually the best player in the world. You, the one promoted at sixteen. He was a teenager spellbound, of course he was, by Ronnie’s way of life. I prefer to remember the positives. Ronnie welcomed him instead of isolating him. We are all human and we can all make mistakes, but I think the way he welcomed Leo on the pitch was very positive, and on top of that Ronnie integrated him into his group of friends. Leo was a boy at the time, with twenty-seven- or twenty-eight-year-old men. I believe that real-life experiences are incredibly important, to know what suits you and what doesn’t, and Leo learned a lot from Ronnie, and he definitely learned in every sense of the word.’
The fact is that Ronaldinho was not always a good example to Leo. ‘There came a day when Ronaldinho, he of the eternal smile, the player who had given Barcelona the self-esteem they had lost after five dark seasons, allowed himself to be consumed by long nights of partying, with the corresponding hangovers that were slept off on a massage bed in the changing room gym,’ explains the highly-regarded Catalan journalist Lluis Canut in El Mundo Deportivo. After the successful period (2004−06), he would train alone in the afternoons with a member of the technical staff who had found out about Ronnie’s preferences and distractions, including his favourite women’s hair colour. He agreed to keep such information to himself in exchange for those extra sessions. During matches, if he felt worn out but thought he had done enough, Ronnie would tell Rijkaard that he had a muscular problem so that the coach would substitute him. The message being given to the rest of the squad was a dangerous one.
In any case, his decline was not normal. And it was accelerating at an alarming rate. What was happening to Ronaldinho? Just a year after being named the best footballer in the world for the second successive season, he had lost his love of the sport. Which is another way of losing self-respect.
But everything has to start somewhere.
Something broke in Ronaldinho’s mind at World Cup 2006 in Germany. Brazil arrived massive favourites after triumphing in Korea four years earlier and taking away the 2004 Copa América and also the 2005 Confederations Cup. They won their qualifying group, which included Croatia, Japan and Australia, with nine points.
But the team (with stars such as Ronaldo, Kaká, Cafú, Roberto Carlos, Lucio and Ronaldinho) was not playing well. Ronaldinho, a big child, extremely innocent and an eternal pleasure seeker, felt victimised. On some occasions he would call a friend and ask them to visit. He needed to clear his head but he couldn’t go out because of the paparazzi.
The Brazilian squad used the World Cup as an excuse to get away from routine, to remove the constraints of the many demands put upon them, but it was the new world star who got the stick, despite Brazil qualifying. They annihilated Ghana in the last 16 but did not correct the imbalances which prevented them from beating France in the quarter-finals. It was a huge disappointment in a country in which coming second is regarded as a failure.
And that is where Ronaldinho’s love of the game died. The pressure had been excessive, he appeared to lose his enthusiasm for a sport he had started playing for personal enjoyment. He went back to Barcelona weighed down by this.
In his first years at Barcelona, he was surrounded by his family, his brother, sister, mother. But after a while they started to spend more time in Brazil. Ronaldinho was left on his own and did not have many reasons for staying at home. Sports psychologists say that for top footballers the harder it is for them to get where they are – and to get to the top it is a tough road – the more undisciplined they become when they unleash those other needs, when they feel they have to make up for lost time, when they have to compensate for what they have lost or sacrificed. Many people suggested Ronaldinho should get help. Even some of his team mates. But he wouldn’t listen. That is a sign of someone that doesn’t want help.
Leo would listen to Ronaldinho. And could see he was suffering. The bond between them continued to be essential to both of them, even though the balance was changing imperceptibly. Ronaldinho now needed Leo more than Leo needed Ronnie.
Frank Rijkaard was of the opinion that when a player starts to grow, to lead, score, win, fill the front pages of the sports newspapers, he should not be given more than a three-year contract. And when he is at the crest of the wave, contracts should be renewed year on year, out of respect for the player. And when he starts on the downward curve, he should be transferred, despite pressure from media and fans, who probably see him as an untouchable idol. Such a move extends his career and protects him from the often unbearable pressure of maintaining his god-like status. Moving to a club one step below with fewer demands and expectations would allow him to be welcomed and treated like a hero, and the drop in level would be less noticeable. That’s the way to bring the career of an idol to a close, was the Dutch coach’s belief: the landing could often be a bumpy one.
Rijkaard had the theory but at Barcelona he was not involved with contracts; and there is always a substantial difference between theory and practice. He was the type of person who felt obliged, grateful, to the players who have afforded the opportunity for him to excel as coach. He was willing to compromise instead of dealing with and halting the slackers, something that had to be done at that time. You have to be very brave to make those decisions, both for the club which lets a player go and for the professional himself.
Meanwhile, the two seasons after the World Cup were disastrous for Barcelona. The first year they managed to put up a fight for the league and only lost it on goal difference, but the next the points distance with Real Madrid, champions in both seasons, was becoming greater by the month.
Leo would meet up with Deco, Thiago Motta and Ronaldinho in Castelldefels or in Barcelona. He didn’t always finish the party with them, as they sometimes had lock-ins. The next day they would meet in the rondo. ‘We would do rondos to start the sessions, ten on one side and ten on the other,’ recalls ten Cate. Leo usually joined the Brazilian group, which on one occasion was made up of eleven players, leaving nine in the other. One of the coaching staff asked Messi, as the youngest, to even up the numbers. Many times he asked him: four, five, six times. Messi ignored him; he felt a part of that rondo. In the end, Silvinho asked him to move to the other group. ‘Well, if he is like that so young …’ was the view of one of the coaches. It was the k
ind of thing that develops where authority is missing.
Barcelona suffered ten divorces or separations in those seasons of descent into hell. Samuel Eto’o preferred to keep his distance from that group and his enmity with Ronaldinho gradually divided the squad and the club. The two stars continually made gibes at each other in the media until Eto’o exploded at one famous press conference soon after returning from injury.
‘What you have to remember is I have always trained even when injured, and with a few knocks,’ Eto’o said, tired of the unprofessional behaviour of many of his peers. Rijkaard had publicly accused him of not wanting to play the last five minutes in the previous match against Racing Santander and Ronaldinho had continued the criticism of the Cameroonian in the press room. Eto’o could not control himself any longer: ‘If a team-mate says that you have to think about the group, I agree. You do have to think about the group. But I always think about the group first, and then about the money.’
The Ronaldinho problem was exacerbated: on the one hand his productivity on the pitch had gone down and on the other, as a dressing-room leader, his wayward behaviour was dragging others down. The directors were asking themselves if he was the best model for Messi, who was, without doubt, the Brazilian’s heir. ‘He has to go, he is influencing this boy, he is seeing how a football star behaves. He must never fall into that trap,’ explained one of the key executives on the board.
Any unity disappeared completely. Leo continued to allow himself to be influenced by the Brazilian ‘godfathers’ and any player who elected not to do the same was ‘eaten’ by the leaders – Bojan would be one such example.
Suddenly Leo began to see some of the consequences of his new lifestyle. He had an accident with a van in Barcelona. Having crashed, he faced the indignant owner who, fortunately, a fan, was happy to reach an agreement. There were stories of incidents in Barcelona nightclubs. The ‘Rohaldinho effect’ was paying dividends, but not ones that would be helpful to Leo’s career.
Ronnie was teaching him what he should and shouldn’t do as a professional. ‘He was the best coach for Messi,’ says ten Cate today, who tried to prevent him from messing around with the wrong crowd. ‘The Ronaldinho group had a different life philosophy.’ It was not a good one for Leo, and ten Cate told him as much on various occasions. Silvinho would remind him that there were more important things in life than going out at night. Leo would listen and assume the look of an innocent child.
The Messi family would frequently go to the Argentinian restaurant Las Cuartetas in Barcelona where Leo’s celebrity would attract attention. On one occasion, having finished his meal, Jorge left first, leaving his son to brave fellow diners demanding autographs and photographs. ‘Should I rescue him?’ asked one of the waiters. ‘No, no, let him get used to it. In situations like this he must not forget who he is, he has to learn to live with this,’ answered Jorge, always aware of the fine line that divides the father from the manager.
On another occasion, when they were leaving the Camp Nou car park, a group of fans was seen waiting for the stars to come out. Ronaldinho sped past. Next came Leo, with Jorge beside him and he too accelerated. His father told him to turn round at the next roundabout and go back to the fans, roll his window down and sign autographs for everyone who wanted one.
Who would speak like that, a father or a manager? Either way, Jorge was showing him, reminding him, that there was another way to be a star. Leo Messi, just like all footballers, had his adolescence stolen from him by his dream of being a footballer. Or, to phrase it slightly better, he had a very brief adolescence: the time he was with Ronaldinho. But the muscular injuries, a consequence of his disorderly lifestyle, demanded different behaviour from him. In the 2007−08 season, one that was full of collective failure and disappointment, he had to recognise that he could not carry on the way he was going.
‘They were enjoying themselves,’ says Joan Laporta. ‘They loved being together, the style of play. There was a lot of happiness, but, as they say, what goes up must come down. And that year it all came crashing down. We can find a thousand and one reasons, but everything was a part of normal evolution. And Leo learned plenty, because he tasted glory, even though he did not play in the final in Paris, and the pain of the injuries made him realise a great number of things about himself. I have never seen any bad intentions from Ronnie; on the contrary, he was a really genuine guy. And he also liked enjoying himself, it is true, and whether you like it or not that is not incompatible with being a footballer, because first and foremost they are human beings.
‘Afterwards,’ concludes Laporta, ‘your own life puts you in your place. Leo reacted in time. He had the time and enough natural intelligence to say: “now I need to correct this.” And he stopped getting injured.’
The very public changing of the guard was unfolding. The arrival of someone new and a clean start was also needed in order to make Leo Messi the best player that he could become. He had to free himself. Of ties, and friends who distracted him.
The club was going through a very tense political phase at the same time as the sporting hiatus was occurring. Sandro Rosell, vice-president from the first few years of the Joan Laporta era, resigned over a clash over how the club should be run. He had been working in the shadows, preparing a vote of no confidence against the president. The team had qualified for the Champions League semi-finals, where they would face Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United with Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes and Carlos Tévez. But in Catalonia that knock-out game was interpreted as the end of an era that might even change the board of directors. ‘You do realise that if you don’t win today, it will be very difficult to continue, don’t you?’ Txiki Beguiristain was asked on a programme on TV3, a channel usually friendly towards the club.
‘The opposition had been capable of generating such a level of stress and tension, with the press firmly on their side, leaking rumours and creating needless distractions. It led to hysteria in the club,’ remembers Ferran Soriano. The tension was not just one man’s perception either: two weeks before the first leg, while the team was playing at the Camp Nou, thieves broke into the offices and stole Laporta’s computer, and the same thing happened later on with the database containing club membership information. Laporta was being attacked from all sides.
The semi-final second leg was played in Manchester, after a 0–0 draw in the first. At Old Trafford, on the way to the board of directors’ lunch, Joan Laporta had a premonition: ‘I have a feeling that our necks are on the line, today is going to be dramatic, today is the end.’ That day the president betrayed his emotions in the VIP box during the game in a way he had never done before.
Ronaldinho had mysteriously disappeared from Rijkaard’s squad by then – he had nothing more to give the team and the Dutchman left him out of the squad. That fixture saw the first duel between Leo and a shy Ronaldo who, having disappointed so far in the big games, was required to play number 9 against his will. Messi was the better player at Old Trafford, orchestrating Barcelona’s dangerous attacks. Paul Scholes scored against the run of play and Leo could have equalised, but Van der Sar thwarted him. The match was very even, but there was the inescapable impression that the team was just a shadow of what it had been and would soon be broken up.
Duly eliminated by Manchester United, the year ended very badly. Third in the league, Barcelona finished 18 points behind Real Madrid and had to perform a guard of honour for the champions at the Santiago Bernabéu; they therefore had to play in the Champions League qualifying round the following season. In the Copa del Rey semi-finals they were eliminated by Ronald Koeman’s Valencia, who would go on to win it.
Rather than consider ‘how we should look after Messi’, the board of directors had to decide what to do with Frank Rijkaard, and how to overcome the growing number of enemies. But the changing cycle clearly had to be enacted through the Argentinian, as Joan Laporta recognised in an exclusive conversation with the author for this book:
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I have noticed many times that when you make a comment to him, or give him some advice, Leo thinks, he assimilates. There was a moment when he was already the best player in the world and was not awarded the individual accolades that he deserved. Kaká won the Ballon d’Or in December 2007, and Leo came third. Ronaldo second. I remember that we spoke on a plane, and I said to him: ‘Leo, you are already the best player in the world. You will start winning individual titles the day the team starts winning.’ Ronnie was still at the club, but even Ronaldinho himself realised from day one that we were seeing someone exceptional. We had not won anything for two years and that was reflected in the vote for player of the year. And I said that to him. I think he made that reflection his own.
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It had been a frustrating season.
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And we did have to make big decisions. We concluded, together with the board and director of football, that the team had to be freshened up. And the leadership, too: I spoke with the home-grown players (Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Víctor Valdés) who had already matured thanks to what they had learned from Deco and company. They had to become the dressing-room leaders. And evidently, Leo would be the leader par excellence. From then on, nobody did anything without Leo’s approval or acquiescence, which he always gives in his own way.
Messi Page 38