Free Messi by Guillem Balagué Page B

at Grandoli, and naturally won everything.
    Matías Messi finds it easy to put into words those days when he himself had dreams of becoming a footballer. And he, like all the Messis and all the other anonymous spectators, believed they were witnessing something special. ‘Very often there were problems because of this, because he played so well. So well, in fact, that some coaches of the other boys sent their team out to bring him down – if they couldn’t get the ball off him by fair means, they’d get it in other ways. It was something that you had to see to believe. There were even players on the other team who would applaud some of his moves. “What are you doing?” the rival fans would ask.’
    Sometimes it seems that many of those recollections reflect the Lionel Messi of today rather than those of the little boy who played good football; certainly a tireless scorer of goals but, at the time, a footballer of individual brilliance rather than a team player, and there is a big difference. They do not speak of a child, rather of a child who has become the greatest footballer in the world. It isn’t the same thing. It is easy, with hindsight, to idolise those who succeed. And for this reason it’s difficult to find anybody who would dare to add a qualifying ‘but’.
    Anyway, at Grandoli there were many others who showed promise. ‘I have seen several who could have been like Messi but they did not have the perseverance in training,’ says Gonzalo Diaz.
    Ah, perseverance. Without it, you cannot be a footballer.
    Jorge Messi also dreamed of becoming a footballer, but after four years at the NOB academy, just as a player starts to blossom, when the first team beckons, Jorge left to do his military service, and on his return he married. When Jorge was 29, the age when most footballers reach their peak, Leo was born.
    Jorge has always had very fixed ideas, but he teaches by example rather than by word. His philosophy is simple: work hard, be persistent,show humility and you can achieve your goals. Maybe that is why Leo is not seduced by the celebrity culture, is not dazzled by those great names in neon lights. In any case for Jorge, as with the overwhelming majority of the Argentine people of his generation football was the inevitable and irresistible face of Maradona, videos of whom Jorge treasured and played frequently to his sons.
    Leo’s father therefore passed down to his sons an appreciation of the one man who rose above the rest to lead his side, who caressed the ball as he was looking for the next pass, and who had the power in his feet to create a symphony of answers. For Lionel, and for many of his generation, that type of player could be seen in the shape of Pablo Aimar, the ex-River player. Lionel has said many times he did not have any football idols as a kid, but he liked to see Aimar. Is it true that he had no heroes? Don’t we all have some point of reference? When he was asked at the age of 12 to name his idol, he said he had two: ‘My father and my godfather, Claudio.’ In that same interview he confessed he considered humility the greatest of all virtues. Something with which his father would agree.
    Leo, like his brothers, shared his father’s passion for football. Jorge is a reserved man, even a little distant at times, and also a decent central midfielder, as little Leo would see when Dad played games with his workmates at the Acindar factory. He understood football, a game he loved. The Messis came down every weekend to Grandoli to watch Matías and Lionel play, and one day a club director asked Jorge if he would take charge of the kids born in 1987. He thus became Leo’s second coach. ‘We were part of the Alfi league, one of the independent competitions that play in Rosario and the municipality. There were different categories up to 12 years old, and the youngsters always played on a seven-a-side pitch,’ Jorge told Toni Frieros.
    He trained three times a week with simple, individual