Messi (15 page)

Scene Two

The Messi family decided to consult a specialist because they saw that, at the age of 10, Leo was not as big as the other children. Medical tests were scheduled
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We see on stage a consulting room in an old house. It was one that the father of Dr Diego Schwarzstein had lent him some years back. It’s on the first floor which is reached via an elegant, wooden staircase similar to those built a hundred years ago. It’s a small room, measuring three square metres. Just outside the consulting room there’s a small waiting area. We see Dr Schwarzstein in his white coat, looking for papers in the drawer of his medium-sized writing desk. He starts to talk and to tell old stories
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… so, I was told, ‘we definitely have someone who is the best, a phenomenon, but he needs to grow’. Every now and then, when the medical staff at Newell’s see something at the club that attracts their attention, something that needs the involvement of an endocrinologist, they would call me and say: ‘we would like you to see this patient.’ And so it was that Leo and his mother found themselves in my consulting room.

In truth, I remember some of the things, and others I only remembered afterwards, because as you can imagine I have had to tell his medical story many times in answer to questions, and also because I was curious. It was my birthday when he came to see me for the first time. A coincidence, 31 January 1997 if I remember correctly. He came with his mum and … I explained to him a bit just as I explain to all the boys: that doctors cannot help everybody who wants to grow; we can only help those who have a growth problem that stops them growing normally. So, I said, there is no treatment or medicine to grow. We try and find out if there are problems that are stopping growth or making it difficult. And when we detect these problems, that is when we can help. So, anyway, I suggested we did some tests.

A child who is the size he is supposed to be because that’s what his genes have dictated, he can be happy or otherwise, but medicine is not going to change the situation.

I explain this to them because sometimes patients expect the
doctor to give them a magic pill, something that’s going to allow them to play in the NBA [National Basketball Association]. And that doesn’t exist. I explain this to them so they don’t build up any false hopes, and then I begin my investigation. What sticks in my mind about Leo is he was a very introverted, reserved boy. I don’t know whether the word is shy or reserved. He didn’t really strike me as being shy, I think he is the introverted type. By shy, I mean someone who can feel inhibited or a bit detached. I don’t believe that Leo was ever that; rather, he was reserved, careful. He had to be opened up before he would trust you.

But as he loved football so much, as do I, we very quickly broke the ice by talking about football; who was his idol, who he liked, where he played and so on. And very quickly we established a good relationship. And soon I realised there was only one thing that mattered to him – he wanted to be a footballer.

When I explained to him that what I had to do was a quite aggressive, somewhat uncomfortable examination, I thought he might become nervous but he said to me: ‘I want to play football.’ What concerned him was that he should grow enough to be able to become a footballer.

Anyway the diagnosis is a bit tiresome, but we got there relatively quickly, considering. At the end of the 1990s, we did not have certain biochemical diagnostic technology, so everything took a bit longer and sometimes in Argentina it’s hard work trying to get the National Health to authorise this type of investigation. If the investigations show there is indeed a lack of growth hormone, you then have to carry out new tests, called confirmation tests, to be absolutely certain of your diagnosis. What’s more, one of the elements we use for diagnosis is the speed of growth, and the only way we can do this is by measuring someone today and then measuring them again a few months later. So, as a result, this is generally a diagnosis that takes at least three or four months, or in the case of Leo, if I’m not mistaken, six.

And, indeed, what he lacked was a hormone. You can genetically engineer exactly what was lacking and inject it under the skin once a day. The treatment consisted of putting into his body an organism that he was missing. He didn’t produce this organism naturally, so it had to be taken externally. And it’s
an expensive treatment, $1,500 a month, more or less.

You have to inject yourself, I told him.

The doctor takes a small case out of his cupboard that he opens while he is talking
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And how did he react? I don’t remember. What I’m suggesting is that he reacted just like anyone would have done in the circumstances, because I don’t remember anything unusual.

It’s a pen, that, instead of having ink, has a growth hormone, and instead of having a nib has a needle. So, first I load the dose, it has a regulator, he pricks himself, the needle can be hidden, it’s well hidden, and he injects himself. Normally I would give the first one in my surgery, or, rather, I help them, and I supervise them until they learn how to do it on their own. They can put it in the thigh, they can put it in the abdomen, they can put it in the arm. It’s very similar to insulin; you’ve seen people injecting themselves with insulin. It’s very similar; every individual selects the area they feel most comfortable injecting themselves, where it hurts less. And, well, Leo apparently preferred to inject himself in the legs rather than anywhere else.

When I give them to my patients, I say: stay calm, this doesn’t hurt at all. So they ask you: really? It doesn’t hurt? And I say, if I inject you while you’re looking somewhere else, you probably won’t even know that I’m doing it. A mosquito bite hurts more. It’s an injection using needles that you can hardly see. They are needles that are changed every day, they never break, they’re very short. These days they measure no more than three millimetres.

These are patients you see more or less regularly. During the diagnostic stage, I probably saw him four or five times in six months. After that I probably saw him every three months. So you develop a relationship and you start talking about other things. Because the key was football, we both liked football and he played for Newell’s and I am a Newell’s supporter. I used to ask him: how’s it going? Who’s training you? Do you watch the first team train? Stuff like that, but after a while you begin to develop a relationship that goes beyond the technical, the medical side of the patient. So, I carry on asking him, how’s it going? What are you doing? And one day he comes with his father and you ask him how his mother is, and the next time he comes with his mother and you ask him how his father
is, and so on. Then he’d tell me, my father hasn’t come because he’s doing this or that. You go on chatting, building a relationship. That’s my style anyway.

And he would keep saying, ‘What I want is to play football.’

I would always try to explain to him, or to other patients, that the treatment had nothing to do with whether or not he would become a footballer; it was about growing. In fact, if I’d wanted to become a taxi driver I would have had to receive the same treatment, unless of course I wanted to be a very short taxi driver … The difference is that being very, very short, you could still have been a taxi driver, but it would be very difficult to become a footballer, but it isn’t just the treatment that helps you make it. Or, rather, the interaction between the treatment and football is more indirect. The treatment helps you grow, and growing would help him with football, and he was clear in his own mind that this was the road he wanted to go down.

I don’t remember seeing him cry. In my consulting room? No, I don’t recall ever seeing Leo cry. What’s more, I’m convinced that if you ask him directly what his worst moments were, when he suffered most, what hurt him the most, I don’t believe for a minute that he even remembers his treatment. I don’t recall that the treatment was especially traumatic for him. Clearly, for all youngsters, when you tell them they have a problem, and that it will be resolved by using injections it has two effects. First, they are pleased when you tell them the problem is easily solvable. Or if not easily, at least solvable. And then this difficulty with growing will disappear and they will grow normally, and they will conquer the limitations that it puts on them. This makes them happy. But when you tell them that the solution is to stick an injection into themselves for the next two thousand days, or … I don’t know … three, four, years, they don’t fancy it much. But I don’t remember that his reaction was to cry. Of course when you say to him, yes: you’re going to have to inject yourself, he didn’t like it at all. But then, who would?

If you notice, the players … it’s rare to find a player like Cristiano Ronaldo who is talented and big. Generally, the talented players are small. In Argentina, Orteguita, who played at Valencia, or Maradona, or Neymar, as well, they are not big players. I think for the type of game they played, the dribbles they make, they need to have a fairly low centre of gravity and for reasons of mobility … it
helps to be small, no? But, that said, is the talent Leo has for playing on the ball what makes him what he is now?

The doctor continues arranging the papers on his office desk. He takes off his white coat. The consultation is coming to an end
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To put it another way, Leo’s treatment has no influence whatsoever on his emotional development. But what is clear, and I tell you this also as a small person (I am short, I measure 5'7" and I was short as a child as well), at times it means you are at a disadvantage. With your friends who are taller. It is common for children to get into fights, and I’m not talking about Messi here, I’m talking in general. With kids it’s easy to get into a fight over the silliest things, and if you’re small you cop it. If you’re tall it’s easier to get ahead. And with girls, exactly the same: the girls like taller blokes. When you’re small, very small, it is not easy. In truth, with Leo it was pathological: he lacked a hormone. He was below what was considered to be the normal, which can lead to certain personality traits, a certain inhibition, insecurity. In other words, when the body permits … or at least doesn’t put limitations on you … your personality will develop normally. But if a person is already introverted then lack of stature will only add to feelings of insecurity.

Is it doping? The growth hormone has been used as a supplement by adults who do not need it, with the objective of gaining a sporting advantage. But you have to differentiate between growth hormone treatment for an adult who doesn’t need it, who is looking for a physical benefit – and they are high doses and can have very negative side-effects – and the treatment of a physical deficiency in a young boy. The first thing to say is that Leo was a nine-year-old boy and I don’t think he could ever have imagined this scenario. What’s more, if you could ask him: when you were nine, 10, 11, what did you dream about? I don’t believe he dreamt about this, being the best in the world. I think that this would have exceeded any dream. Look, when I was a boy, I dreamt about wearing the number 9 Newell’s shirt. I would come on with five minutes remaining, and score the winning goal that won us the league. I dreamt that they gave me the number 9 shirt for Argentina and I scored the winning goal in the last minute of the World Cup final. But if you achieve this, you have to say it exceeds your dream. The treatment he received is not
the reason why he managed to achieve his dream. He was a nine-year-old boy who loved football, just like 99 per cent of nine-year-olds in Argentina. Imagine for a minute that today at Newell’s they give one hundred boys aged between 8 and 10 the same treatment – they would have a hundred Messis! And that’s not even taking into account a place like La Masía in Barcelona, which has an economic capacity far in excess of ours, and probably also junior divisions superior to ours. They would now be manufacturing with growth hormone some 10 or 12 Messis every year!

I have a young child, and when I was giving Leo this treatment in 1997, my son was three. If giving this treatment to a boy can turn him into the best player in the world, I would have given it to my son, not to Leo.

What’s more, if I remember correctly, the treatment was interrupted when Leo was 15, or was almost 15. Already in Barcelona. It’s said that growth like his puts a strain on the body, muscular problems like those he suffered as an adolescent, but that has nothing to do with it because in truth every child with a hormone deficiency is growing less than he should. And when the treatment replaces the deficiency, and the child no longer has a shortage of this particular hormone, he starts to grow normally, at the same rate as his peers. Do you understand?

That explains why it is not doping: because whoever has this hormone deficiency is at a disadvantage to everyone else. Making up for this deficiency with a hormone that he is lacking simply means that while he is no longer at a disadvantage he doesn’t have an advantage either. To put it another way, he gains something by adding the hormone but not compared with his peers who already have it naturally.

It was certainly an expensive treatment. The charity that Jorge created and his National Health were very good over a long period. What happened is that this country fell apart in 2000 and 2001, and the whole welfare system broke down, and in many cases such treatment was interrupted, generating a great deal of uncertainty. This country went up in flames. But perhaps at that time Newell’s could have done more.

I never saw him play in a Newell’s shirt. I hope I shall one day. I have watched him on television. I have seen him play live in the
Argentina shirt. Maybe one day I will see him in the red and black. I hope so: back in the days when he had doubts about becoming a footballer, I said to him: ‘stay calm, and you can dedicate a goal to me. I will tell you where I am, where I’m sitting and you will come to me and you will dedicate a goal to me.’ And when I see him, I tell him: ‘you owe me that goal.’ Ha! In a Newell’s shirt, at the Coloso, our ground.

The doctor switches off all the lights but one, and stands in front of a door that leads to a small exit. He puts on his hat; doctors should always wear hats
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