Messi (32 page)

The tango, now enjoying a renaissance in the world of dance, despite not being as popular as it was decades ago, tells us much about what it is to be Argentinian: ‘it expresses resentment, fear, sadness and cunning,’ explains Marcos Aguinis. Is this the Argentinian gene?
Is
there an Argentinian gene? Is there one in football? And if not, how to explain that three of the top five or six players in the history of the game, three players who marked the age in which they were playing – namely, Alfredo Di Stéfano, Maradona and Messi – have been Argentinian. And, yes, Di Stéfano must be included. Those who don’t know him should listen to Jorge Valdano talking to Clarín. ‘He directed games, he was someone who broke all the rules in his time. He was the director: the king of the castle, the
destabiliser, powerful, brimming with talent. He was not the typical Argentinian footballer of his era. His was a freak talent.’

Those three were born in a country with a smaller population than many of the other world champions (Brazil, England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy). Is it because they play in the streets or on bumpy pitches? ‘Technique is improved on good pitches, not bad ones,’ says the ex-Real Madrid footballer Santiago Solari. Is it because in Argentina there is more emphasis on individual strength and dribbling skills ahead of the team collective? Is football felt and played as much in other countries as it is in Argentina? Ángel Cappa likes to define the Argentinian footballer as the bearer of historic genes. ‘There were, and I say there were, not there are, basic concepts that were learned listening, looking, even before you could walk. And a modesty that obliged you to search for perfection. To put it another way: if I can’t create it for myself, if I don’t have the skill or the talent, then at least I can give the ball to my companion. The most respected in the neighbourhood was never the bully, but the one who could play with the most skill.’

Cappa and other coaches believe that things are changing, that now anything goes, that everything is good as long as victory is achieved; this is the new mantra, perhaps also the new gene. But there are things that remain even with the passing of time. ‘The Argentinian footballer has a personality that is produced from a high level of self-esteem, that helps him excel at the most difficult times,’ the veteran coach explains. ‘What is very bad in life can be very good for competition – I’m referring to the fact that Argentinian footballers believe themselves to be much better than they really are.’

And the style? Is there an Argentinian style of play? In 1912, the
Standard
, one of the three English-language newspapers in Buenos Aires, was surprised that football and rugby, imported from the British Isles, had been adopted with such enthusiasm in Argentina, even though in practice it was ‘not very scientific’. The temperament of the young natives was described as ‘vehement and impulsive’. The English insisted that the game had to be enjoyed in a spirit of ‘fair play’ and promoted this ethos throughout the colonial schooling system, seeking to instil a sense of ‘gentlemanly conduct’. Overflowing emotions had to be controlled.

But, just as happened in every country of the world that adopted
football as the people’s game, the indigenous population would eventually make it their own. In Argentina the driving force behind this new sport would be Spanish and Italian immigrants who, together with locally based Creoles from the main central urban area, Buenos Aires, were determined to create a distance between themselves and the British. A sense of national consciousness was growing among these ‘new’ Argentinians and their newfound passion would be played their way, according to their rules. And hang ‘fair play’. When you’ve left your country to make a new life in a foreign land you want to succeed. You want to win. Fairness is for those who enjoy the luxury of leisure time and privilege. The Argentinian game would be motivated by the desire to win. It was what drove the immigrants in their daily struggle to survive.

The anthropologist Eduardo Archetti established in his book
El potrero, la pista y el ring: Las patrias del deporto argentino
(2001) (roughly translated as ‘The Pitch, the Track and the Ring: The Birthplace of Argentinian Sport’) a fascinating relationship between football and the tango in the development of Argentinian masculinity. The first recognition of Argentinian footballers in the twentieth century coincided with the consolidation of the tango as music and an erotic dance, whose difficult choreographed movements served to identify it as an example of Argentinian cultural creativity. Similarly, Argentinian football began to dismiss the British emphasis on physical strength and discipline, and to focus instead on the Creole qualities of ‘agility and virtuosity of movement’ – especially with dribbling, or
gambeta
as it is known. The dribble is a deception, and, for the Argentinian, whether he likes it or not, deception forms part of his culture.

The international achievements of the national side (runners-up in the 1928 Olympics and in the World Cup of 1930) and a European tour by Boca Juniors in 1925, with the aid of a few other Argentinian clubs, confirmed Argentinian virtuosity in European eyes and hallmarked the dribble, pass and touch as characteristic elements of their style of play. The Europeans, it could be read in
El Gráfico
, were of the belief that the Argentinians ‘played football as if they were dealing with a melody’. And later the River Plate side of the 1940s, known as ‘the machine’, built up a collective strength and understanding of the game: suddenly, beauty could be synchronised.

Alfredo Di Stéfano played in that same River side, if only as a replacement for Adolfo Pedernera. ‘The Blond Arrow’ (as he is known in Spain) took this style of play wherever he went, both as a player and a coach. On the bench at Espanyol, and tired of seeing the ball flying over the heads of the players, he stopped a training session. ‘What is the ball made out of?’ he asked the young players. ‘Leather,’ they answered. ‘Where do you get leather from?’ ‘From a cow,’ they said. ‘And what does a cow eat?’ ‘Grass,’ they said. To which Di Stéfano replied: ‘Right, so … play it on the grass then!’

Argentinian football was born and developed in the fields, or
potreros
. On these uneven pieces of ground, extensions of land that was being built upon, the kids would learn the art of dominating the ball and copying the techniques of their sporting heroes. It is said that, just as the Brazilians learned their shooting and controlling skills from playing barefoot in the sand, so the wastelands of Argentina provided the training ground for the dribbling and passing skills that would become uniquely Argentinian.

All of it creates ‘
la Nuestra
’ as they refer to it. Our Way.

And just as the
potreros
have ‘given birth’ to some of the world’s greatest footballers, including Messi, so their lure continues to draw them back, not just in geographical terms but also in spirit. The Argentinian footballer, often an immigrant, has a constant need to return home, to distance himself from the pressures of professional football. ‘I have listened to a lot of first division footballers say that it is a shame that they are not allowed to go out and play on the rough pitches, the
campitos
, the
potreros
,’ says Liliana Grabín. ‘They have to come out of the city because there are few spaces left in the centre of towns. A lot of people tell them not to do it because the “man of the hour” who comes along for a game will suddenly want to make a name for himself by having marked a famous player: and that’s how legs get broken, they say. But the pull is stronger than them, irresistible. They go out, into their neighbourhood, their small city, and smell the earth, and they can’t avoid it. They start to play with a friend they grew up with, one who stayed in the neighbourhood.’

For them it is a return to basics.

Ángel Cappa tells in his marvellous book
La intimidad del fúbol
(‘The Intimacy of Football’) how, one day, René Houseman, star of César Luis Menotti’s Huracán, vanished from the training camp the
day before the game. The coach couldn’t believe it. Then the penny dropped. Menotti asked his assistant Poncini to accompany him to Houseman’s poor
villa
, the Bajo Belgrano. When they arrived they were enjoying the usual end-of-the-week kickabout. Houseman was not involved in it. A relieved Menotti thought about returning to the hotel before his eyes were drawn to the bench. There he saw Houseman. ‘What are you doing here,’ the coach asked. Houseman answered: ‘Can’t you see how that number eleven is playing!’ That anonymous winger had taken his place in the most important game of the week.

There are numerous examples of this inherent appreciation of the value of football to the Argentinian psyche. Newell’s Old Boys is but one. Gradually reorganising itself, it still has a way to go but with a new board since 2008 and more popular support, it’s getting there. They recently won the 2013 Torneo Final. However, financial constraints continue to hinder progress. Leo Messi donated €22,000 to improve the Malvinas Complex where the youngsters play. It is said that he also paid for the first team’s gymnasium in the sports city on the outskirts of Rosario, and that one way or another he is laying the groundwork for his eventual return in the years to come.

It is an anonymous gesture that few know about, but there are many others, less well known, who continue to contribute their time and talents to raising revenue for better sports facilities. A new
pension
was built for the players in the lower levels and Dr Schwarzstein took it upon himself to collect some of the money needed to buy 40 mattresses at €50 apiece. Recently the first team organised a raffle for the supporters in which the winners would play a game against the professionals, share the dressing rooms, and for one day live the life of a footballer. The money raised helped to build the gymnasium for the lower levels at the club.

Football is life in Argentina, and life is football. And that explains why, at the very apex of the vast mountain of footballers of any age and level, officials, coaches and commentators, you see the names Di Stéfano, Maradona and Messi. ‘Leo could not have been born in Syria,’ said César Luis Menotti. Without Di Stéfano (or Charro Moreno or Mario Kempes), Maradona would never have risen. Without Maradona, or if Leo’s father and brothers had not been footballers, we would not have the Messi we know.

This is Leo. The very synthesis of the Argentinian gene.

The defeat of your country is even more painful when you are far away from it. The mini drama of the immigrant is that, when things go well for him away from home, his triumphs are of no particular interest to those who live near him. The immigrant footballer likes to return to his neighbourhood so it can be seen that he is doing well. But on his first holidays, back to his home at Las Heras after he had signed for Barcelona, even after he had debuted for the first team, hardly anyone in Rosario was particularly interested in Leo. It was much later, years later, that the teachers, the organisers, the team-mates, began to recall him almost like a divine apparition, a halo of light, a grand presence that changed their very reason for being. The ‘I saw him, I touched him, I was there’, that says as much about the individuals themselves as it does about Messi, came much later.

In Argentina footballers are distinguished according to the contractual relationship they have with the club: the fans most value those who have won titles and have spent most years at home; it’s the same all over the world. But the second type is something very Argentinian: you’re a hero if you have been sold after having played for the first team. The third type borders on treason: those who have left without having played in the first division. Or, more than treason, they are never totally accepted by the fans as one of theirs. Like Leo at Newell’s. But Messi never stopped being an Argentinian.

But Spain fought to get him to wear the red shirt of Spain.

The coach of the Juniors at Barcelona, Alex García, mentioned
to the Under 16 Spanish selector Ginés Menéndez that he had an excellent youngster who, to date, had not played for his country. Ginés went to see him. Leo impressed him and during the Spanish championship that Leo was unable to play in because he was a foreigner, Ginés approached him: ‘Would you come with us? If they don’t call you up for Argentina, remember us.’ The Under 17 tournament was about to take place in Finland and the Spanish side consisted of players like David Silva and Cesc, among others. ‘Are you coming?’ was the question asked of both him and his father. He had been at Barcelona for two years.

‘No thanks,’ they both answered.

Leo would never have played for Spain. Messi is Argentinian, from Rosario and a
Leproso
, as he has said on numerous occasions. But, following that offer from Menéndez, several months went by before he received his first call from a member of the Argentinian Federation (AFA) and a year before he got his first official invitation to join the Argentinian squad. The AFA required the presence of ‘Lionel Mecci’ (sic) at a training camp to be held in the middle of June 2004. Barcelona said they would be delighted to release him, but not immediately, because they were involved in the Copa del Rey Youth Cup.

Until he travelled to Buenos Aires for his first call-up with the national youth team, there would be a series of meetings, coincidences and the odd misunderstanding before Spain would finally abandon its plans to try to convince the youngster to join La Roja.