Messi

by Guillem Balague

  A few hours later, ‘the Flea’ posted the following message on Facebook. ‘I want to thank Pep with all my heart for everything that he has done for my professional career and for my life. Due to how emotional I feel, I preferred not to attend Pep’s press conference. I wanted to be far from the press above all, because I know they will be looking for the sadness on the faces of the players, and this is something that I have decided not to show.’

  There remained one more thing to do. Barcelona were facing Espanyol in their thirty-seventh league match of the season with everything already decided. The club took the opportunity of guaranteeing that the last match at the Camp Nou would be a homage to Pep. Leo Messi scored all the game’s four goals. ‘The Flea’ pointed towards Guardiola after his first, directly from a free-kick. Two more went in.

  Before the game, Leo told his dad that he felt sad about the departure of Pep; ‘the Flea’ feels every big change like a little mourning. He recognised he had done lot of good things for him and the side, and was thinking he deserved a little public gesture. Just before the fourth goal, Javier Mascherano told Messi it would be a good idea to approach Pep if he scored again.

  And his fourth goal of the game duly arrived. Leo ran towards the bench to embrace his coach.

  If the hug he gave Ronaldinho was the embrace of a generational swap and from a boy who wanted to thank his mentor for looking after him, that day at the Camp Nou the fans saw a gesture of gratitude to his boss for having understood his needs. ‘Thanks for everything,’ Pep told Messi in his ear. ‘I did it to thank him and because that’s how it came out,’ said Leo after the game.

  There was still time to win the Copa del Rey, against Athletic de Bilbao, 3–0, with another goal from Messi, the second of the game. After winning the fourteenth title of that era, Pep said again to ‘the Flea’: ‘thanks Leo. We’ve won loads, but without you we wouldn’t have won half of them.’

  Leo went off with the national side a few days later and from there had some words to say about Guardiola. ‘I was surprised and sad when I knew he was leaving. He will always have my respect and admiration. Now a new stage begins, we hope to continue in the same manner. Guardiola always said that everything he did was together with Tito Vilanova. We hope things go well for Tito for the benefit of everyone.’

  Leo Messi and Pep Guardiola did not speak again. They lost contact.

  They saw each other briefly at the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony in January 2013. They greeted each other but little more. Nor did they come across one another when Barcelona played against Bayern Munich in a friendly in the late summer of 2013. ‘I haven’t seen him,’ said Leo after the game.

  Players and coaches do not have to behave like father and son. They don’t even need to love each other.

  But Pep probably needs another warm embrace from Leo. He did everything for him. And surely Leo would want to offer him some sign of affection and gratitude.

  The distance, the coldness, can only be explained by the need for a period of decompression, of distance, after four intense years. ‘A certain amount of time has to pass, don’t you think?’ suggests Joan Laporta. ‘With the benefit of time, you realise just what he has done, the success he has had, who he has had at his side. Top competition brings with it a mental pressure way above what is normal. And at the end of it you need time to see it with new eyes. There’s affection from both sides, I’m sure.’

  Pep will always remember that he had the best player in history under his guidance. And he knows that Leo loves him.

  And that Messi doesn’t know how to say it.

  Both are conscious of the fact that they have been mutually helpful to each other. And when they retire, or when they meet again, at some time or another they will embrace again. And there will be no need to say anything else.

  But with Pep gone, Leo was now mostly worried about how things would go under a new coach.

  2

  Where Is Leo Heading?

  1. Cristiano Ronaldo

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  Friends come and go in life. It is very rare to be able to maintain a thirty-year relationship with anyone, apart from your siblings and parents.

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  Above everything it is a relationship that you never had with anyone else: going through the same things to reach the same point in your life, but never at the same time. One or the other would win, we were never in the same emotional place, but we did go through the same things. So we can empathise completely.

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  Even so it is very strange that we are capable of maintaining such respect and intimacy despite trying to beat and annoy each other constantly as much as possible. You were definitely a part of my life every single day, whether I liked it or not, because I had to compete and read about you absolutely every day.

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  You know? Your image was really funny; I was the tough one. But your image was the tough one, and I laughed, because I knew that I was the toughie. That’s the way it was, I’m not saying it to boast or anything.

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  You were like a meringue with a ball of steel inside, and I was the ball of steel with porridge inside.

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  You were so smooth inside, so vulnerable, so emotional; and I was the tenacious, stubborn one. People had a different impression of what we were like on the inside.

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  I think that contrast cements a great rivalry, the ying and the yang, the black and the white, as we used to have, you and I. We were polar opposites in the eyes of the public. I was more passive in my game, you were more aggressive, you were emotional, I was cold. What contrast could you see?

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  The most obvious was in style, but the emotional component was even more so, because I simply couldn’t keep my feelings locked away in a box. I had to let them out in the matches.

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  I didn’t understand how you could cry on the pitch. I tried to understand why you couldn’t control yourself, in front of sixty million people watching you on television, but on the other hand I admired you because you were capable of showing your emotions without limits.

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  You were one of the best competitors in history.

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  I was jealous of you for a long time. I didn’t want you to win. At other times I would admire your honesty, you spoke with your heart in your hands. I kept everything trapped inside, I wouldn’t say anything bad about anyone in a press conference because my mother used to say to me: ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything.’ I always wanted to be like you. I respected you and admired you deeply.

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  Nobody wants to lose when they play, but my biggest motivation was testing and beating myself. I was competitive with myself.

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  You were dominant in such a way that I couldn’t find a single crack in your armoury which would help me discover how to beat you. I had to make myself stronger mentally.

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  I would see press titles, the goodie against the baddie, and that killed me. I was the villain and it hurt me. I didn’t like it, but what could I do? When your name was spoken, everyone applauded. When they spoke mine, some whistled. I was jealous of you too.

  (Extract from a conversation between tennis players Chris Evert (America’s sweetheart) and Martina Navratilova (poker-faced Czech-born player) in a fascinating ESPN documentary, Unmatched)

  Maybe Ronaldo and Leo will one day have the chance to spend a weekend together as Evert and Navratilova did at the request of ESPN. It would be fascinating to hear the conversation between these two giants, admitting both their admiration for and rage against their nemesis. ‘Messi and his poetry should not take anything away from another chosen one, Cristiano Ronaldo, a sublime player who also defines an era,’ as journalist José Sámano puts it.

  One is tall, good-looking, with a powerful shot, a sprinter’s acceleration. The other is small, a dribbler with any number of roles on the pitch; he can
be a goalscorer, passer or organiser. Both play for teams that have been constructed to play to their particular strengths. Both have humble origins. Leo does not need external recognition as much as Ronaldo, merely acceptance. The Argentinian has a small posse of protectors, whereas various companies revolve around the Portuguese, looking after his money and his image.

  Cristiano exemplifies the stereotypical world-class player we’re now so used to seeing: he woos the paparazzi, lives the lifestyle of a Hollywood actor. Messi is the polar opposite, perhaps the first star who just wants to be a footballer. Leo knows that he could have a supermodel by his side, but he prefers his friend’s cousin, Antonella, whom he grew up with.

  But that is the superficial vision upon which the media feeds. The reality is that they both have as much in common as separates them: they have the same competitive spirit; they have both sacrificed their lives to achieve their dreams. They both share some fundamentals: kicks from opponents, various demands on them, the deep desire to win, the pain of defeat. They appreciate, seek and desire the collective title, but they also want the individual one, and the goals.

  Tell me if this story sounds familiar.

  Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santo Aveiro was born in February 1985 on the island of Madeira, the fourth child of María Dolores, cook, and José Dinis, gardener, a family with financial difficulties. Not only did José love football, but it was part of his world as a kitman at Andorinha, the village team. Cristiano lived with a ball at his feet and, when he did not have a leather one, he would make himself one out of anything that was lying around. Sporting Lisbon signed him and he left Madeira for the first time in his life at the age of 12. At the club residence they laughed at his Madeira accent, which in Lisbon was considered a poor boy’s accent. In one season alone he played at five different levels at Sporting, including the first team.

  Cristiano, whose dad passed away in 2006, speaks of Sir Alex Ferguson, his manager at Manchester United, as a second father. Leo has Jorge as a manager and father, two roles which are difficult to combine. Ronaldo’s mother mixes her maternal role with that of confidante and protector, and is always ready to help care for her bachelor son’s child. Messi’s older brother, Rodrigo, often acts as his father. Both men therefore share the same circumstances of close family ties and the presence of trusted confidants, together with the varied and often interchangeable roles that these people are required to adopt.

  Both have children, which has been character changing and has matured them. Both have consulted a psychologist at different times in their careers, although each has responded in a different way: Leo did not think it was of much use, whereas Ronaldo has had one at Real Madrid for the past few years now in an effort to change his public image and to help him control his emotions better. And both have fantasised about their futures since they were very young: each told himself that he was going to be the best, as if it were written in the stars.

  In 2009, the German magazine Der Spiegel confirmed that Ronaldo was the ‘fastest footballer on the planet’, the result of an extraordinary ‘fine tuning of a high output motor’: he regularly does 3,000 sit-ups, he systematically gets eight hours’ sleep every night and has extraordinary mental strength. His thousands of hours with the ball allow him to make decisions unconsciously and to know the permutations of the game without thinking: he dribbles at full speed looking at his adversary’s feet (he can dribble around 13 cones in eight seconds); he anticipates opponents’ presence, the amount of available and necessary space; and he senses where the ball is going to fall even in darkness, as he demonstrated in a filmed exercise in which he was asked to shoot with the light switched off just as a cross was put in.

  He scored on both occasions: his reaction time was 300 milliseconds. He even scored when the shot left the foot of the crosser after the lights were off. His shot, the famous Tomahawk that sees the ball rise and fall like a missile, is the consequence of practising 25 to 30 free-kicks every day.

  But the world has decided that one is the villain, arrogant, stuck-up; that the other is the tireless worker, modest. That is how they are often described in the Latin world anyway. CR7 (Cristiano Ronaldo and his shirt number) often shows his feelings and that is why opposition fans try to put him off with shouts of ‘Messi, Messi’, whereas Leo keeps his emotions under control most of the time. People feed on rivalries such as this one, and the fact that Ronaldo encourages the comparison does him no favours. But he cannot help it: it is the tragedy of those who are one step behind, yet, in their own way, equally extraordinary.

  Pedro Pinto (CNN): We are going to speak about images rather than football. Do you think that you are sometimes a victim of your own persona?

  Cristiano Ronaldo: I’m not going to make a thing about that, but sometimes I think so, yes.

  Pedro Pinto: Why?

  Cristiano Ronaldo: Why? Perhaps … I never give a 100 per cent correct answer, because sometimes I really don’t know. Maybe I agree sometimes, maybe I have a bad image on the pitch, because I’m too serious … But, if you really know me, if you’re my friend, if you come to my house, if you spend the day with me … you will realise that I hate losing!

  Four years after arriving at Real Madrid, merengue fans are still not clear about who Cristiano really is. ‘People think his life is made up of an undefined succession of daily crises,’ writes Diego Torres. ‘In reality, they do not know that, apart from when his competitive streak gets the better of him, he is a simple lad, educated, noble, respectful of his opponents, and grateful to be able to live in a city that he appreciates.’

  In a memorable scene from the film Rush, the story of the rivalry between James Hunt and Nikki Lauda, the then recently married Austrian F1 racing driver admits: ‘Happiness is the enemy, it weakens you, suddenly you have something to lose’, and that ‘having an enemy is a blessing’. The following is no coincidence: on 28 January 2013, Ronaldo celebrated three goals against Getafe. A few hours later, at the Camp Nou, Messi scored four against Osasuna. ‘The level they demand from themselves varies and increases as the enemy’s achievements increase,’ the writer and physical coach Pedro Gómez writes for this book. ‘Thinking small makes us grow only a little. If the level we demand from ourselves is not stimulated daily, we stop evolving. If one of them didn’t exist, the other would be satisfied with being top scorer with twenty-five goals.’ One makes the other better, just as used to be the case with Navratilova and Evert.

  But the general perception at the moment is that Messi is one step ahead of Ronaldo. In the time they have been Madrid and Barcelona players (since 2009), Barcelona have won 15 titles, Madrid three. Messi has won four Ballons d’Or, Ronaldo one; Messi also wins the Golden Boot battle as the top scorer in Europe, 3–1. And according to a publication by the FIFA CIES Football Observatory, Leo Messi’s market value is €250 million, while Ronaldo’s is between €102.2 and €118.7 million.

  Ronaldo suffers more from the comparison: it must be so painful to be second despite all that effort, sacrifice, ambition and talent. And Messi is something of an obsession for the Portuguese player: he is his point of reference. He demands his club treat him as Barcelona treats Leo, and that they give him the same affection.

  For as long as they are in competition their relationship will be marked by their battle for the same space, that small, distant space in which the truly greats live. But how do they get on? What do they say to each other when they meet? And when they are not in the spotlight?

  At the 2013 Ballon d’Or gala, Ruud Gullit thought he noticed ‘a strange relationship between Cristiano and Messi; they barely say hello to one another’. The relationship, in the presence of others, is cold. It is not bad; it is respectful but distant. They do not hate each other, as some people might believe, say the families of both. Conversation does not usually go beyond ‘hello, how are you, everything okay?’ At public events, Messi is always surrounded by his own crew, or with Xavi and Iniesta, whereas Ronaldo usually shows up on his own, even though mixing wit
h people he does not know intimidates him.

  And it is difficult to break the ice when they see each other in private. In September 2012 the UEFA player of the season was selected. Iniesta, Messi and Ronaldo were waiting in a private room before going onstage. Nobody else was present. According to El Mundo, one of the three took the first step. Cristiano looked at Leo and asked him about his summer and about recent matches. Messi answered him and Iniesta brought himself into the conversation, which ended up being friendly and football-related. The two blaugranas were surprised to see such a warm Ronaldo for the first time, and this at the height of the José Mourinho era.

  Diego Torres relates an anecdote that confirms the two stars’ diplomacy in his book Prepárense para perder (‘Prepare for Defeat’). It happened at the Ballon d’Or 2012, the day Real Madrid President Florentino Pérez feared for the first time, according to Torres, that Ronaldo could end up at Barcelona. Andrés Iniesta, Pep Guardiola and Vicente del Bosque were witnesses to the following:

  ‘On 7 January 2013, the president found himself in an isolated corner of a hall in the Kongresshaus Zürich, keeping an eye on Messi while he was being interviewed on television. Cristiano suddenly appeared at the other side of the hall. Then, exactly what the president had feared occurred. Messi called him over, Cristiano went, and they hugged just like children. Pérez confessed to his friends that he watched the scene in anguish. He felt danger. He could visualise everything. Cristiano would be free in January 2015 and then any club, Barcelona included, would be able to sign him without negotiating with Real Madrid.’