Messi (16 page)

At one time he used to look at me as if to say, ‘this is the doctor who will help me to grow’ and would probably look up to me. I must have been a strong presence to him. But today I am the one in awe of him. I’m the one who says ‘he is the best footballer in the world’.

(A child’s voice is heard): Will I grow?

You’re going to be taller than Maradona. I don’t know if you’re going to be better, but you’ll be taller.

That’s exactly what I said to him.

Scene Three

The voice of an Argentinian radio commentator, maybe that of Gazzo, is heard, talking about ‘baby’ football at Newell’s. On the wall in large letters, at first individually and finally all together, the following words appear:

A family of three boys and a girl, the youngest, gather with their mother and father around a small table in a little dining room and talk among themselves. The father dominates, though everyone contributes.

On one of those cumbersome televisions that still existed in 2000 there are images of an Argentina in crisis
.

Suddenly all the lights apart from one go out. The only one that remains on is pointed at the father of the family who turns to the audience and answers questions put to him in a deep voice with a German accent. What follows is an interview that Jorge Messi gave to the magazine
Kicker.

Lights go off.

Scene Four

Sergio Levinsky, author, sociologist and journalist, addresses the audience on a stage where images of Argentina in 1999, 2000 and 2001 are projected onto a backdrop behind him: we see youngsters playing football, grandfathers demanding their money from closed banks, angry fans, all sorts of images related to the subjects Sergio is addressing
.

As Sandra Commisso and Carlos Benítez say in their book
La infancia hecha pelota
(‘Childhood Made Football’): ‘It’s one thing to have a boy who likes football, and who also plays well, and something very different to create a star, with all that it signifies.’ It is no coincidence the year that the book first appeared, nor is the fact that the prologue is written by the late humorist and genius Robert Fontanarrosa, one of the greatest storytellers of real-life Argentina, who was born, like Lionel Messi, in Rosario.

The book is divided into seven chapters and at the end contains tips on how to organise and conduct a junior training session, how to avoid making errors and how to develop the appropriate fitness for every child, while exploring the idea that football has become a business even with children, pressured by parents, coaches and agents, so the game stops being a pleasure and becomes a quasi-professional obligation.

In his prologue, Fontanarrosa writes with some justification, ‘no one has the right to frustrate the dreams of a kid’. But the book asks whether it is ethical that a child, not yet 10 years old, should bear the burden of being the breadwinner of the family by playing football.

For many years now, but especially in the twenty-first century, the socio-economic frustration of a vast sector of the Argentinian population (an estimated quarter of the 40 million people, according to the last national population census held in 2011) has led them to pursue a career in football as their only route to salvation.

How did we get to this? On one side, it has to be understood that from 1999 to 2001 Argentina lived through the last years of an economic plan that had lasted for a quarter of a century; a plan perpetrated by financial oligarchs and supported by the Church. This followed a bloody
coup d’état
that resulted in the disappearance of a total of 30,000 people, from 24 March 1976 onwards.

The economic plan involved borrowing money from North American banks at very high rates of interest, just as the rest of South America did. The country ended up in such debt that it was effectively bankrupt, while increasing rates of interest meant the country was being monitored by organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Eventually, in the last week of 2001, Fernando de la Rua’s centre-left alliance government fell. The Argentinian people, shaken by years of fiscal incompetence, demanded that they should all step down, with the result that the country had no fewer than five different heads of government in a week. Then, at the beginning of 2002, the ruling class opted to put in charge, unelected, the powerful Peronist Eduardo Duhalde.

Thus the country was trapped between the ‘
corralito
’ and the ‘
corralón
’.

Before the crisis, the large foreign banks had withdrawn all their funds from the country so that it was now impossible to withdraw dollars, the preferred currency of the Argentinian people (they did not trust the peso); and to make matters worse, they placed a super-low limit on the amount of money that could be withdrawn, when the cash machines were not working (the
corralito
).

While this chaos ensued, a bank holiday was announced and at a time when there was parity between the dollar and the peso. But when, a few days later, the banks reopened, the dollar cost three times more. Suddenly, many people found that the value of their savings had been cut by two-thirds and there was nothing they could do about it (the
corralón
).

In other words, in a white-collar attack the banks had robbed the people. This led to mass demonstrations outside the banks (which remained shut), pensioners smashing the windows with hammers and sticks, and of course all confidence in the Argentinian banking system evaporated.

Around this time, without the circulation of money in the system, the government implemented a policy of printing ‘painted papers’. These were vouchers that in different provinces had different names (the Patacones, Lecor, Lecop or Tucumano dollar); they were quoted lower than the peso, and some businesses announced in their windows that they accepted many of these vouchers, as well as dollars, pesos, reales and all types of credit cards. Many still remember Duhalde’s hollow promise that those who had dollars in their accounts ‘would receive dollars’, as well as those who had pesos ‘would receive pesos’.

It was during this period at the beginning of the twenty-first century, at the time of the worst institutional crisis Argentina has ever experienced, that football, as a business, having already been established as the people’s sport of choice, came to the fore.

The triumphs of Argentinian teams during these years represented some of the few successes in life that could be enjoyed by every member of the failed classes, beaten down daily by life’s trials. For many, the only hope during this period of unrest was the possibility that a member of the family might make it as a professional footballer and ‘rescue’ the rest of the family from financial disaster. A slang saying much repeated at the time was,
‘yo soy yo y mi tío de América
’ or ‘I am me and my uncle from America’. Argentinians were helped by those fortunate enough to succeed and earn money abroad.

It was certainly incredible listening to fans in the stands in first division games, where large numbers of unemployed or desperate people would scream ‘loser, loser’ at a player solely because he had been unsuccessful in Europe, although you have to bear in mind what this represented symbolically. In the Nineties, we were all complicit in planting seeds of avarice in our children. President Carlos Menem’s message that with power comes licence to live a life without scruples became a fashionable ideology that ended up being transferred to football, and manifested itself at games. In 2000 we looked on passively as young professionals played, while tolerating the frenzied abuse coming from their parents during training and at matches, being chased by labels like Nike etc. trying to sign them up for their first contracts, the appearance of agents hoping to discover future talents and the arrogant posturing of very young players, confused by the whole debacle.

And that’s why there were incidences in ‘baby’ football of fathers hitting coaches and referees, clubs stealing players, games that needed a police presence and bosses who took advantage of family anxiety.

In this context it became commonplace for children or youngsters, often sponsored by large organisations, to become the family breadwinners. This depended to a large extent on the amount of pressure applied by their elders.

A few of those kids had the good fortune to team up with some excellent coaches whose first concern was for their welfare. One of those was Carlos Timoteo Griguol, creator of the dominant Ferro Carril Oeste in the Eighties and the Gimnasia and Esgrima la Plate in the Nineties. ‘He advised us that with the first big money we earned we should buy our house, and he used to go crazy if he saw us with the latest model of car,’ some of the former players often claim. Griguol was also a pioneer in that he insisted, as a condition of playing in the team, that players obtained good grades in their studies, something quite unusual. Quique Domínguez and Ernesto Vecchio were also among those coaches who showed such care and sensitivity.

At the beginning of the Eighties, Diego Maradona was the prime example of one of those youngsters who ended up maintaining a huge family. His team Argentinos Juniors bought him a house so that he could get away from the
villa miseria
(shantytown) of Lanús. In his rented house in Barcelona, where he moved in 1982, he lived with his fiancée Claudia, and a large number of friends. He also sent a lot of money home to his family on a regular basis.

In this context we consider the Messi family in 2000 faced with the dilemma of Lionel’s hormone deficiency. Without enough money to pay for treatment it was clear that his size would remain inadequate. They had complete faith in his ability but when Newell’s wouldn’t pay for it, they took matters into their own hands; like thousands of other families in the country, they realised it was worth the risk to ensure that their son would go as far as he could in the sport he loved.

And that’s how the Messis, determinedly, rationally and with a great deal of spiritual strength, decided to set out on a great adventure.

Scene Five

The beginning of the twenty-first century saw the start of a period of exile for Argentinian footballers whereby they crossed the Atlantic in search of their dreams. The crisis accentuated the process that saw football schools throughout the country become breeding grounds of talent. Footballers were being converted into assets and in many cases the principal income of clubs, institutions that often worked hand in hand with exploitative directors and bosses. And so the footballing exile from the country became the norm and continued to grow throughout the first decade of the century. Between 2009 and 2010, Argentina exported almost 2,000 footballers, more than Brazil, historically the number-one seller of footballers
.

We are in a high-ceilinged café. People are sitting around a table drinking coffee. In the corner there is a television set circa 2000 featuring the same animated family conversation we saw earlier, but without sound. On one side is a large glass window. Outside it is raining
.