Messi (39 page)

In the lower teams Leo would not accept playing on the wing, because there he had to wait for the ball to come to him, he didn’t get enough of it. But coaches often made him play wide, often on the right. It’s common practice: a right-back struggles defending a left-footed player, and Leo could cut inside and shoot often if used on the right wing. But bit by bit he would come out of his position and appear in the
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zone. That is where he enjoyed himself more, where he felt he was giving more to the side. In any case, he knew that to go up into the first team he would have to accept the conditions imposed on him. He could not play as a
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, because the weight of attack fell upon Ronaldinho who played out on the left. Neither had he sufficient status yet to make demands: the thing at that moment was to get up there with the big boys and stay there. But 11 months after his debut in Porto, and after dozens of coaching sessions with Frank Rijkaard and Henk ten Cate, Leo believed he was ready to make the great leap forward, to make his debut.

So did Rijkaard.

After six games unbeaten, Barcelona found themselves leaders on 16 points, thanks to a solid defence, Eto’o’s goals and Ronaldinho’s magic. The next game was on 16 October, the derby at Montjuïc, the then home of Espanyol. Leo came on for Deco with eight minutes left to play in a match that was still very much alive, with the
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just 0–1 ahead despite having dominated most of the game; it was not a substitution made simply to appease the fans. ‘Get yourself on the right wing and look for the break, son,’ said Ten Cate. ‘Look to use your speed between the full-back and the central defender.’ There was no real time for him to make any kind of impact. Barcelona won by the only goal of the game.

At 17 years and four months Messi had become the youngest ever player to represent the club in an official competition.

His father took him back to his flat at Gran Via Carles III, just three streets away from the Camp Nou. As the journalist Roberto Martínez asserts, ‘He grew up just three streets from the hue and cry of the stadium, how’s he going to get stage fright? He plays at the Camp Nou as if he was playing in his own backyard, except that there are 100,000 people there.’

That night Leo didn’t talk about his debut, or about the game, in fact about anything in particular. He didn’t have any special celebrations: this was just the beginning. He hadn’t reached anywhere yet, he was just starting on the road. In his room, however, although the silence was deafening, the audible memory of a Camp Nou applauding as he stepped on the pitch remained etched on his mind.

After playing 20 minutes in the next game against Osasuna, he spent the next seven games on the bench, including one spectacular 3–0 victory over Real Madrid.

Sitting behind Rijkaard, Leo looked on as Ronaldinho, at the peak of his powers, celebrated, often with his trademark surfing gesture.

(Leo Messi on Barça TV, 2013)

‘The fact that Leo had Rijkaard as his first coach at the top level was of tremendous benefit to him,’ explains Silvinho. ‘Rijkaard was always the big-hearted type, a true gentleman who always showed concern for everyone.’ It’s difficult to find anyone who has a bad word to say about the Dutch coach on a personal level.

Frank is from the school of thought that believes a coach should only spend about 20 per cent of his time coaching. The rest of the time is taken up quietly doing whatever is necessary at that particular moment: sometimes he becomes a big brother, or a father, or a colleague. ‘I think he’s unhappy, let’s go and see what the problem
is’ he might say to one of his assistants. Footballers can sometimes be very cruel, constantly looking for weaknesses in those who coach them, but they are more disposed to being managed when they see the coach has affection for them. And also when he shows he has the same touch with the ball as they have, that he has experienced the same doubts, jealousies and joy as them. In that sense, it suited Rijkaard to have been an altar boy before he became a priest.

He quickly applied this paternalism to Leo. With a hug, a show of interest in his life off the pitch, a joke just before going out to train, Rijkaard was getting closer to the Argentinian. Messi felt comfortable with him. And was eternally thankful. A young player might impress in the lower ranks, but one day a manager gives him the opportunity to play – footballers never forget the man who takes that big step. ‘It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes’, Rijkaard told him. ‘You will play again’. That faith in him helped Leo. Their connection was not just a professional one. Frank was born in Amsterdam but is the son of immigrants (his father is from Surinam) and he was the best player in the district, at school, in the junior sides at Ajax. He had empathy with those players who were ‘different’, including Ronaldinho, because he too had suffered the same stigma. And he also knew that football belonged to the footballers. He reminded them constantly, with every gesture, in every conversation, that he was there to help them. This shrewd tactic, coupled with his honesty, meant Frank got what he wanted out of the players.

Rijkaard spoke more with the other players, especially Ronaldinho, but he made a conscious effort to get Leo, who remained as reserved as ever, to trust him. Ronnie, Eto’o and Silvinho invariably took the lead in the usual team meetings, while Leo rarely said a word. Only if he was asked. And then his reply would be monosyllabic. The Leo whom Rijkaard had in those first few years was one who wanted only to follow orders, and the Dutchman used the close harmony he was creating to ease the Argentinian’s progress into the club elite.

Messi left his apartment in Gran Via Carles III the morning of the match against Albacete, the thirty-fourth match in the league in that 2004−05 season. Since his debut against Espanyol he had played just five games with the first team in the domestic league but only for a few minutes, as well as nine with the Barcelona B side, plus
one cup and one Champions League match. When Rijkaard called him up for a home game, Leo knew the routine: he had to get to the Camp Nou at 11 a.m. Those who wanted to could do a bit of gym work or get a massage. If there was time Leo used to play football tennis inside the changing room.

It all began with Silvinho and Ronaldinho, who would often apply himself more to this pastime than to the training itself. The Brazilians would make the most of a wide rectangular space with three walls in the players’ space, between the gym area and where they got changed. They would mark lines on the floor with sticky tape and stretch a bandage across as a net. They played one against one, one bounce, a maximum of three touches before the ball was returned, with the first to reach 11 points the winner. Silvinho considered himself sufficiently skilful to challenge Ronaldinho; sometimes he did look better than him and he often won. In fact, he ended up beating everybody. Silvinho became the king of football tennis. Until Leo arrived.

Messi saw football tennis as another challenge. It was just a game, but there was more at stake than a victory in some minor sporting diversion: there was prestige in the game, even within the hierarchy of the squad.

Messi waited his turn to play at the beginning, but before long he was actively seeking opponents. He was the best. And the most consistent, always ready to play a match, a tournament.

‘We played before games or especially after training,’ remembers former Barcelona left-back Fernando Navarro. ‘In the end they put in glass walls, as if it were a cage, and a real net, quite high; the matches became quite explosive and very intense. But it was also good because it meant we got better technically. Messi was the best, the bloke always used to put it by the column; there was a column on one of the sides and he would always put it there, where you couldn’t get to it.’ Gio tried to beat Leo: ‘We would finish training at one and could spend the afternoon playing, even up to six o’clock. But it was unfair if you had to face Messi. He was a monster.’

Even though it was just a space for the players, a bit of fun away from the daily grind, the coaches kept an eye on the football tennis matches: they demonstrated the competitiveness of a player, his
character. If a player always played at the same level, it spoke volumes about his ambition. You could test the technical skill of the participant, and as his pulse rate increased, his mental state: see if he was switched on, detached, angry …

After training, on match days, the team would retire to the nearby Princesa Sofia hotel to eat and rest.

The match against Albacete was played in May. There were four games remaining in the league, and even if the opposition were at the foot of the table Rijkaard called for organisation and concentration. Madrid, with goalkeeper Casillas saving goals at one end and the Brazilian Ronaldo scoring them at the other, had had six wins on the trot, and they were getting close to Barcelona, who had taken up residence at the top for most of the season. The game proved to be more difficult than had been expected: Albacete held off a Barcelona, who, without a recently suspended Xavi, were finding it difficult to get into their rhythm. Iniesta had come on in his place but was unable to give the team the necessary fluidity to break down a packed defence. A couple of diagonal efforts from Giuly, a fluffed shot from Eto’o and an excessive display of overelaboration from Ronaldinho, who kept coming inside and narrowing the game, defined a tense Barcelona. Then, with an hour gone, Eto’o hit a shot from the edge of the area that Raúl Valbuena, having played with assurance all night, was unable to reach.

With seven minutes remaining, and with a tight 1–0 lead, Ten Cate asked Leo to warm up. Eto’o looked to the bench and made a gesture that he was not ready to come off. But he was the one replaced. Messi went up to Rijkaard who spoke to him casually, as if he had played in a hundred games: ‘Play how you know. Stick yourself on the right.’ Leo looked at his coach, waiting for further instructions. There was nothing else. That’s it.

In the forty-second minute an angry Eto’o walked off the pitch, shaking hands with Leo without so much as looking at him, the words of Ten Cate, reprimanding him for his behaviour, ringing in his ears as he headed for the tunnel. He went into the changing room and started kicking things. No one likes to be substituted, least of all by a youngster. Rijkaard said afterwards that he hadn’t seen his anger: ‘We thought it was an opportune moment to put on a youngster like Messi.’

The game had to be won. The 1–0 scoreline demanded concentration. There were three minutes remaining until the final whistle, plus any added-on time. Ronaldinho went up to Leo. ‘I’m going to give you a pass for you to score. Tomorrow it will be you on the front pages,’ he said to him. From an attacking right-hand-side position the Brazilian found Messi, who was by himself, and Leo, with one smooth lob, beat the goalkeeper. Valbuena appealed for offside and the referee gave it. It wasn’t. The goalkeeper knew it and ruffled Leo’s mane by way of apology.

‘I’m going to give it to you again,’ insisted Ronnie.

With normal time completed, Ronnie, in the position of
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, used his instep to place a ball over the backs of the Albacete’s defenders. Messi let the ball bounce once, and with another delicate touch put the ball over Valbuena. His first goal for the FC Barcelona first team.

And then something extraordinary took place.

Leo ran off with his arms stretched out, shaking his hands. He stopped and turned in search of the collective hug. Ronnie came up to him, bent over and Leo jumped onto his back. The Brazilian was carrying the boy on his back. The kid had scored. The league was just a step away.

The group celebrated the goal and the victory on the pitch. So did the fans. In the changing room the euphoria was palpable. Victory in the next game, with a defeat for Real Madrid, would bring the title back to the Camp Nou for the first time in five years. The whole world wanted to touch the goalscorer: ‘congratulations, son,’ they said. And: ‘careful with this one, Ronnie. He’s going to be taking your place. He’s even scoring now.’

Leo moved across to the press area. ‘Everyone in the changing room treats me very well, but with Ronnie I have a special relationship, hence the celebration. I would like to dedicate this goal to my family. To my mother, who is travelling at the moment, and to a nephew who is on the way.’ Rodrigo’s wife was pregnant and was due to give birth shortly.

His father Jorge still gets goosebumps when he thinks about that day: ‘You hear the people singing Messi, Messi, Messi. It’s the biggest thing that can ever happen to anybody.’ His son had become the youngest player in the history of the club to score. ‘I am very
happy for him,’ said Rijkaard in the press conference. ‘With that goal he showed how talented he is.’

Albecete’s goalkeeper Valbuena was teased by his team-mates: ‘You stop Ronaldinho and then you end up copping it from the little feller.’ He kept the ball from that game – he had a premonition. Today he says he wouldn’t swap or sell it for anything. The ball that featured in the first major goal scored by the best player in the world is at the home of Raúl Valbuena.

Leo Messi returned home. They laughed about the fact that in three minutes he had scored two goals from almost identical plays. He had supper and went to bed.

The next day he got a call at lunchtime as he was eating with the family in the flat. It was Maradona. The first time they had spoken. Diego congratulated him. Messi was going to hear from him again a couple of months later in the Under 20 World Cup Championship.