Messi (23 page)

As the years passed he felt more comfortable with his team-mates and ended up having breakfast at La Masía; there, instead of going to school, he would benefit from the help from a teacher who would assist him and other players, who, because of match journeys or the hours of training, or more likely through lack of enthusiasm, did not make a habit of attending the Lleó XIII school. Nonetheless there were still many free hours to kill.

After half of his family had gone back to Argentina, the time when Leo did not have a ball at his feet began to drag. Jorge did what he could to entertain him. He would challenge his son on the PlayStation and they would often leave the apartment and stroll to El Corte Inglés or to Les Corts, the residential and commercial district crossed by the long Avenida Diagonal. No pitches there, or many parks either, on which to improvise a game of football. Jorge became his companion around the city, a playmate in any games, a temporary substitute for his friends, his moral support and the backbone of Leo’s life in Barcelona. At the stage when most boys in their mid-teens are looking for any excuse to rebel against their parents, Leo, a ‘boy-man’, a kid with the responsibilities and experiences of a grown-up, found protection under his father’s wing.

When things like that happen, when a father is obliged to take on the role of both father and mother, a confusion of identities can occur within a boy that can stunt his natural growth and maturity: yet another of the sacrifices that many aspiring professional footballers are obliged to make. When these roles become fudged, there is only one thing that stops an identity crisis and that is to focus on just why you have done what you’ve done. That, and the unconditional love of those who surround the child, is the cord that binds everything together and makes sense of it all.

Jorge, in his self-imposed role of single parent, aimed to rear Leo with a firm set of principles, not least a respect for authority and a clear appreciation of his roots. In this he has been successful. The problem for any single parent, coping with the breakup of the family unit, is to avoid over-protection. And yet over-protection is inevitable as they attempt to ward off accusations that the child is not being sufficiently well cared-for.

But when he says to his son, ‘don’t forget those who ask you for an autograph have spent hours waiting for you’, as he has had to on some occasions, is it the manager or the father talking? In the worst of cases, when the father is unable to clearly separate the two roles, a situation can arise that is recognised by many sports psychologists: at the time when the father is playing the role of manager, the son is an orphan. And he looks for a father figure elsewhere. It’s even worse, say the experts, to be an orphan with a father alive – when the father is still around, the child can become a resentful orphan. And at that point the father gets the feeling that he has no control over his own life, that he is in tow. And when someone has no control over their own lives, say the experts, they feel the need to control everything else that is around them.

And how does a footballer cope with this situation? At the end of the day he is the one responsible for the family upheaval. All successful players are not just aware of their sacrifices, but also feel an infinite debt of gratitude for everything their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters have done, because without their efforts they would not have got to where they have. But there’s more: at the same time they also carry a large feeling of guilt because they have broken the lives of those closest to them. So the son, to compensate, buys houses for the parents; he becomes a provider. And in the process the bricks and mortar serve as tangible evidence that effectively their lives have been turned around.

And, finally, what about the brothers? The ambivalence continues: wonderful, most think, we wouldn’t live like this were it not for you, brother. But on the other hand, maybe you’ll never know, but you have squashed our lives, everything in our lives has always centred around you. Who would want to be the brother of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?

Maybe it is because of these difficulties of dealing with a broken
family that Jorge admitted he would not have split up the family. But out of all this came one advantage, as he told the magazine
Kicker
: ‘The luck came at the time when the “one for one” state financial policy between the peso and the dollar was changed. When my wife and my other children returned to Argentina and I stayed with Leo in Barcelona, we lived in Barcelona on just half my Spanish salary, and the other half I was able to send to Argentina. It meant that shortly after the devaluation my wife and children could live well on the half we sent. That really was lucky.’

Back home, Matías showed his mother how to use the webcam so she was able to keep in touch with Leo, who in any case chatted to her every day on the internet and telephoned her every three days. Celia never failed to cry whenever she spoke to her son. And whenever she saw him on television.

Claudio Vivas, the former assistant to Marcelo Bielsa at Athletic de Bilbao and another Argentinian involved in the world of football, reflected upon the subject of absence and distance: ‘Everything is a sacrifice. Those who know you most intimately know whether or not things are going well; in truth socially and economically things are good for us, but bad from the sentimental side of things. I know what Leo’s mother or father feel because, on the one hand it’s nice to be here, in Europe, but there are sacrifices that have to be made.’

Curiously where evidence of all this is seen the least is on the training ground, where players tend to hide any perceived weaknesses. The reason for this behaviour is perhaps best explained by the English player Joey Barton in the magazine
Football 24/7
: ‘It’s the same every Saturday before players take to the pitch. When they’re in the hotel room or at home a couple of hours before kickoff, that’s what’s going through their minds. Most players, not all players, but a lot will be feeling vulnerable. Because no one wants to play badly, everyone wants to do well … and it’s a sign of weakness to show it. But what I learnt, certainly from my own trials and tribulations as a human-being, was that actually it’s not. It’s actually a great strength to say “do you know what? I feel a little bit nervous and a little bit vulnerable.” Once you voice that to your peers and it’s out there, it almost dissipates it. Some people’s retort to it is to shout and get loud: “I’m not nervous. I don’t care. Blah, blah, blah.” I can see that and say “but yeah, you are”.’

If you look at Leo’s first interviews in Spain, at the public Leo, you see a young man, excited, mature for his age. When he was only 14, the Catalan television station TV3 visited him in his flat on Gran Via Carles III to interview him about his arrival, his first steps at the club, and he handled it like a veteran. Yes, he said, he was well, comfortable and calm. They asked him who his favourite Argentinian player was and he said, ‘I would like to play with Aimar.’ Javier Saviola was at Barcelona at that time and he had the good sense to add, ‘but I like Saviola very much as well’. Leo has done many such carefully considered interviews. No sign of the stress the family was going through.

Neither the players nor the trainers at La Masía knew that Leo cried at night alone in his bedroom. ‘It seemed like he was managing everything quite well,’ remembers Alex García, one of his academy coaches. ‘I think he was very clear about one thing: he knew what he’d done: “I have been separated from my mother and my brothers because I want to be a footballer; I don’t know how far I’ll get, or how long I’ll last, but I know that I want it.” He knew that would require sacrifices and cause suffering. I asked him how he was, because after all he was so far away from his family, and he said to me: “well, my mother is coming now with my brothers.”’ No room for weakness in public.

But the kid gave away clues: after spending three hours training, if you count the time getting there, changing, warm-up, exercises and shower afterwards, Leo always wanted to stay on the pitch a bit longer.

For a young footballer, someone who has not yet made it to the first team, this is what loneliness is: six o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, already dark if it’s winter, a few hours after the morning game, in your house, a long way from home. The rest of the evening stretches before you. No one to go out with, nowhere to go anyway, tucked up in bed after supper, with only the sound of the television or, in the case of Leo, his father’s ‘goodnight’ … hard, very hard.

Sometimes Leo avoided those long afternoons by taking a long time over lunch in one of several Argentinian restaurants. Or sharing a new Xbox with a team-mate from one of the youth teams or an Argentinian friend from another club. He watched Argentinian
television, followed the Argentinian league. His favourite films were the Argentinian
El hijo de la novia
(‘The Son of the Bride’) and
Nueve reinas
(‘Nine Queens’); his favourite actor fellow countryman Ricardo Darín. Leo never lost his Argentinian accent, or the customs of his country. He ended up recreating a sort of Rosario in Barcelona. ‘I have always said that he is the most Argentinian footballer from Argentina that I have ever known,’ said Cristina Cubero, who was very close to him during his first, tentative steps in Spain.

But, in reality, shutting yourself off from the alien world around you is the only way of preserving your identity. People always say that integration in a strange new society is the best way forward for any newcomer, but in doing so you deny yourself and all you hold dear – you die just a little. The footballer from South America, with a few notable exceptions, feels obliged to come to Europe to earn money and gain prestige, but normally returns to his roots at the end of his career. He wants, like everyone else, to die at home.

Leo is not your typical Argentinian (a subject that will be considered later in the book) but he is certainly very Argentinian. If an Argentinian wanted to describe himself it would probably be in this way: an expansive Italian who speaks Spanish, thinks like a Frenchman and would love to be an Englishman (the very words overheard in a bar in Rosario), but Leo is simply a reserved individual who adores Argentina. His talent with the ball helped him to adapt well (it is much easier to be accepted in a foreign country when you’re good at what you do), but in his fight, consciously or otherwise, to preserve his identity he relied on the support of his environment (his family), on Barcelona, who, despite espousing the Catalan language, never forced him to speak it, and also on the Argentinian community in Barcelona, a group that welcomes all new arrivals and which shares Leo’s pride in their customs, accent and food.

‘The Flea’ often visited an Argentinian restaurant, Las Cuartetas, in Carrer de Santaló, the first one he discovered. He enjoyed it so much he went there frequently and he was almost always the last to leave. On another occasion when out strolling he came across another Argentinian restaurant in Hostalrich, a town not far from Barcelona. He enjoyed that, too, and went there several times. ‘How
about going to Hostalrich?’ was another way of saying, ‘Let’s go and spend some time in Little Argentina.’

At this stage, Barcelona had asked him to have breakfast regularly at La Masía, which he and the others were given as part of the endocrinological work carried out by the club relating to the players’ diet. At the same time the club doctor, Josep Borrell, decided to gradually wind down the growth hormone treatment Messi had been receiving. At the age of 14, a controlled diet and a suitable physical fitness programme would, in the doctor’s opinion, help him to reach his maximum height without further hormone treatment. ‘In Spain he grew in a way that you wouldn’t believe,’ remembered Jorge Messi in
El Gráfico
. In fact, he grew 29 centimetres in as many months. But he often swapped his diet for the restaurants of his Argentinian friends who would feed him up with gigantic Scaloppe Milanese with potatoes, and milk pudding to finish.

After a few months in Rosario, Leo’s brother Rodrigo returned permanently to Barcelona with Florencia, now his wife, and their baby son, Agustín, who Leo spent hours looking after. In 2005 he told Cristina Cubero: ‘I am always with them. While my sister-inlaw makes dinner, I am with the boy. It’s always me who puts him to bed at night. At first I used to sing him lullabies, but my brother, my sister-in-law and even the baby would laugh, so now what I do is walk around the house with little Agustín in my arms, but not singing, just walking. And he’s soon fast asleep. One day, I’ll have children too …’ His brother worked as a chef at the Hotel Rally and at El Corte Inglés, and was even in touch with Ferran Adrià, the legendary chef-owner of El Bulli, who had a workshop in Barcelona. He could have worked with Adrià, but preferred to look after his brother.

Leo relied on others to look out for him as protectors. Pablo Zabaleta was one such person. Zabaleta was captain of the Argentinian Under 20 side with which Leo played his first international matches and they sealed their friendship when the wing-back played for RCD Espanyol of Barcelona. He willingly took Leo under his wing, extricating him from restaurants when he started to become recognised, advising him, guiding him and helping him steer clear of dubious company.

After signing a new contract in 2005, Messi moved with his
father to a house in Castelldefels, next to his clubmate Ronaldinho, while Rodrigo stayed in Barcelona with his family. Jorge started coming and going to Argentina, so Zabaleta often kept Leo company in the big house that tended to dwarf him when he was alone. In hot weather they would swim in the pool. When it was dark or it was cold, he would suggest, ‘come and play on my PlayStation’. So Zabaleta, often accompanied by other friends, would spend four hours at a time in front of the screen playing. Leo would win by a street. On one occasion, Zabaleta arrived at the seaside house and saw by the front door eight cases of new Xboxes that the manufacturers had sent to him. ‘Take one,’ he told his friend. His house was invariably stuffed with boxes containing all kinds of items sent to him by other manufacturers, all of which he willingly shared with his friends.