Messi (37 page)

All of a sudden Leo’s life was on fast forward. Any number of things were going on at the same time and Leo was taking them all in his stride. Called up for the national side. Tick. In the starting lineup. Tick. Scoring. Tick. The team’s problem solver. Tick. And now, as he entered the final phase of his progression, Barcelona added another box to be ticked. Before the semi-finals against the Brazil of Rafinha, Felipe Luis, Renan and Diego Souza, Leo signed his first professional contract with the FC Barcelona first team. It was the third one he had signed with the club, only this time it came with a buyout clause of €150 million. Box ticked. ‘In Holland? Not even I knew about it,’ Pancho Ferraro says today. ‘But he didn’t seem any different. He’d been somewhere with some guys, Barcelona club directors, but I didn’t find it strange …’ Once again, he was taking steps down a path already trodden, and doing it with his usual lack of emotion.

Obviously, Messi’s focus was on the job in hand, specifically the forthcoming test that the national side were facing: the semi-finals
of the world championships. Two hours before the game he had to listen to three of his seniors, all of whom had looked after him, had helped him make the most of his talent, had helped him along the road to his first tournament with Argentina.

First, Pancho Ferraro. ‘I said to them, “you can make a mistake against Colombia, or Bolivia, but you can’t make a mistake against Brazil because if you do they’ll kill you”. I put the video on for a while, switched it off and then started to talk about what Brazil was and about what we were going to do. And then suddenly, Leo said halfway through the conversation, “Don’t worry, we’re going to win tomorrow.” He addressed it to me but you got the feeling that he was talking to everyone.’

The captain, Pablo Zabaleta, had taken part in the previous Under 20 World Cup finals that had seen Argentina knocked out in the semi-finals, again against Brazil. In Holland the two rivals were now meeting again at the same stage. And in the same hotel. ‘Remember, we don’t want to look at the Brazilians if we lose, they will be with us if we lose, and we will have to deal with their happiness when we’re eating, training … Better win!’ Zabaleta reminded them, too, of the unusual situation that they were facing. ‘When it came to me to speak as captain, I said I was being presented with the opportunity to play my last Under 20 World Cup final. I did not want to let that pass. And on top of that they had eliminated us two years earlier. For that reason we had to do everything in our power to win.’

Before going out to warm up, Salorio had prepared a message. ‘Emiliano Molina, one of Kun Agüero’s best friends and one of Independiente’s goalkeepers, had just died. The internet had been banned, so I gave them the news a few days earlier. And … we were in the semis, we were facing Brazil. This is what I said to them: “lads, on Sunday we’re going to have a special advantage in this game because we are going to take them on with three goalkeepers. We are using Ustari, Lucas Molina and another Molina, Emiliano, also of Independiente, who have both died in a six-month period, from heaven they will be battling with us, we cannot lose this game. Let’s get out there.” Everybody was shocked and emotional, and I walked off. They all followed me to training.’

Semifinal

Argentina vs Brazil

28 June 2005, Galgenwaard Stadium, Utrecht

Attendance: 16,500

Referee: Massimo Busacca (Switzerland)

‘Don’t worry,’ Leo had said. Seventh minute. He collects the ball on the left wing and after a couple of touches senses that the moment is right to launch a rocket from outside the area that flies into the net. ‘He nailed it from an angle,’ remembers Ferraro.

There was still much to do, much to give. Zabaleta controls the ball, he goes past a Brazilian defender into the penalty area. He loses the ball. Out comes the Brazilian central defender to recover it and the Argentinian captain falls to the ground. The ball goes loose. The defender’s foot is raised and Pablo’s head is between the ball and the Brazilian’s foot. ‘One of their defenders wanted to recover the ball and I just blocked it with my head. It was an instinctive reaction,’ says Zabaleta. Ferraro made a mental note of this valiant deed.

Brazil equalise through a Renato header following a seventy-fifth-minute free-kick. The game, dramatic, evenly matched, is heading for extra-time but the Argentinian game is now concentrated entirely on the side on which Leo is playing. He is the star and they look to him for the answers.

With 93 minutes gone, Leo receives the ball on the left and after a quick run down the wing he finds himself on the side of the penalty area, one-on-one against a central defender who has come out to block him. Leaving him in his wake, he gets to the by-line before putting in a cross towards the penalty spot. Kun Agüero fails to get to the ball, but the clearance falls short and to the feet of Zabaleta who hits the ball with his left foot. It strikes two defenders before finding its way into the net.

Goal. GOAAAAAAL!

Behind, Pablo, going absolutely nuts, comes running to Leo, flapping his arms as if he was about to take off. A lap to the right, and Pablo follows him, then to the left, at top speed. Leo joins the group hug, shouting and jumping. A few seconds later, the same thing happens all over again when the referee blows his whistle to bring the game to an end. Argentina have made it to the final.

*

(
Gente
magazine, July 2005)

Final

Argentina vs Nigeria

2 July 2005, Galgenwaard Stadium, Utrecht

Attendance: 24,500

Referee: Terje Hauge (Norway)

Diego Armando Maradona made contact by phone with the side via a journalist friend. He had a moment with Leo. ‘Bring home the cup,’ he said. Nigeria had beaten Morocco and the day before the final Leo had been awarded the Ballon d’Or for player of the tournament; behind him were two Nigerian players, the midfielder John Obi Mikel and the left-sided defender Taye Taiwo. After receiving the prize, Leo prepared a T-shirt that he would wear under his white and blue international vest.

Pancho Ferraro prepared a video for the boys. And with his finger on the remote he said: ‘Look, I love to see the chip over, the beautiful game, the nutmegs, but look at this’. He pressed Play. They saw the incident where Zabaleta had stuck his head between the ball and his opponent’s foot. ‘This is what your captain did.’ Leo laughed. So did the rest of them. And Ferraro added: ‘If we keep that sort of attitude tomorrow, we will come out champions.’

‘Many of us were going to be leaving the Under 20s. That’s the beauty of this level, that it can generally only be enjoyed once. Let’s not let this chance slip.’ That was the message of the captain.

Pancho Ferraro’s line-up was: Oscar Ustari; Lautaro Formica, Gabriel Paletta, Ezequiel Garay, Julio Barroso; Pablo Zabaleta, Fernando Gago, Juan Manuel Torres, Rodrigo Archubi; Lionel
Messi and Gustavo Oberman. Coming on later were Kun Agüero (for Oberman, 57th minute), Emiliano Armenteros (for Archubi, 61st minute) and Lucas Biglia (for Gago, 72nd minute).

Leo had walked through the hotel on his way to the coach and through the corridors of Utrecht’s Galgenwaard Stadium fairly unexcited. He said nothing that anyone remembers. He cannot remember saying anything of note either. ‘His personality is calm, very calm,’ says Zabaleta. ‘Notice when he takes penalties, with an icy coldness.’

Thirty-eighth minute. Leo controls the ball on the left wing and goes off on one of his runs, this time for about 40 metres, going past various players. He gets into the box. Dele Adeleye tries to get the ball back, he can’t, he puts one leg in, then the other. He pole-axes him with a tackle born of frustration. A clear penalty. Leo gets up, no hurry, showing no emotion, and walks to the penalty spot.

As captain it fell to Zabaleta to take the penalty, or at the very least to decide who should. ‘The person who had to take it was the one who had the most confidence,’ Pablo says today. After the foul, Messi, who had spent months practising penalties at the request of his old coach Guillermo Hoyos, picked the ball up, a serious look on his face. Looked at it and with hardly any run-up, one, two, three …

Arsène Wenger says: ‘to get to the very highest level, you need to believe in yourself to a greater degree than can be logically justified. All great sportsmen have this capacity for illogical optimism. Not a single athlete has ever reached his maximum potential without the ability to eliminate from his mind any shadow of a doubt.’

… four, five short steps …

The squad had seen a clear change in Leo’s personality during these 40 days at training camp. Especially so during the final. The emotion of the group (having come so far, having spoken to Maradona, having taken the lead) was in direct contrast to the cold-blooded calm of Messi that was already making the difference on the pitch and turning him into a strong, silent leader of the group.

… he puts the ball with a light touch to the right of the goal-keeper …

‘He hit it with a simplicity, an inner calm, like it was nothing’ (Zabaleta).

‘It was known that he would be one of the penalty takers, but what we didn’t know was how calm he would be about it, and that he would just roll it into one side, slowly’ (Oberman).

… and the ball rolls in gently, far from the goalkeeper, Vanzekin, who has launched himself in the opposite direction.

He barely smiles, with a look that says, ‘Of course I scored.’ He lifts his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the words which read, For Mari, Bruno, Tomi, Agus. A dedication to his sister, his nephews, Agustín and Tomás, and his cousin, Bruno.

Nigeria equalise in the fifty-second minute and, 20 minutes later, Kun Agüero is brought down in the area. Again a clear foul. And once again Leo picks up the ball.

If the first penalty is something that a left-footed player doesn’t usually do (namely, aim his shot to the left), then the second, after three steps, and with the most delicate of touches, sends the ball towards the other post with the keeper hurling himself in the wrong direction.

‘He didn’t get fazed, not even in the World Cup final. He took the penalty as if he was taking it in his backyard at home. And both of them totally different, in different places’ (Pancho Ferraro).

Leo lifts his shirt. Slightly less exuberantly on this occasion.

And the game is over.

There it was. Argentina’s fifth Under 20 world championship. And then the jumping began, the jokes and a huge, everlasting smile that became fixed on Leo’s face. On their way to pick up their medals they talked about the tight dresses worn by the hostesses, greeting all the visiting dignitaries, before running out again for more leaping around before receiving the final prize, the World Cup.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man: champion and best player of the tournament, just as Maradona had been in 1979, and winner of the Golden Boot as top goalscorer (with one more goal than Fernando Llorente and the Ukrainian Oleksandr Aliiev). Zabaleta teased him, reminding him that if he had not taken the two penalties he would not have won the Golden Boot. And, ecstatic, they both posed alongside Prince William-Alexander, husband of the Argentinian-born Máxima Zorreguieta, today the Queen of the Netherlands.

The team returned to the hotel and ‘the Professor’ insisted that
the group show respect for the other teams that were also spending another night there. So, no party, nothing; just a long celebratory supper, that was it.

And what was Leo thinking? Messi remembered that championship as one of the best experiences of his life. Even after everything that he has achieved in his career, that period was, for him, one of the many ‘firsts’ in his life (national side, world championship, new group). He came from another country; he wanted to be recognised in his own. In the group phases he was one of many, but his consistency was in question, as was his physical strength. In the crucial knockout stages, he was a determining factor – with his equaliser against Colombia; two minutes of magic for one assist and a goal against Spain; an early strike against Brazil. Even though he had already made his debut in the league and even scored for Barcelona on one occasion that same season, it was in Holland that Leo Messi really took off.

‘What did we say to him to give him that extra push?’ Salorio was asked. ‘We made him a competitive animal, almost evil – the Argentinian always wants to win. We said to him: “Look, if we lose we’re out of here, because they’re going to beat us to death.” I hadn’t been able to go with Pancho and Leo to the Sudamericano because of stress. But I enjoyed the World Cup very much. There is one unforgettable memory that I will take with me to my grave: the players, me in a corner, came to get me and picked me up and threw me in the air three times. And I said: “Heck, I must have done a lot for this group that they come to get me while I am just sitting in a corner, clapping …”’

‘Kun was, like, crazy, we were all very happy,’ adds Oberman. ‘I remember that after singing, partying, and when we were all a bit calmer, I went up to Leo and said to him: “truly, I will tell my children one day that I played football with you, because you will become one of the greats.” I remember this, and he laughed, and then shyly touched my shoulder. The truth is that I believed he was going to be great, but not that much. He exceeded my expectations. It’s what we jokingly said: now Pekerman isn’t going to have any problems picking his team for the 2006 World Cup because he’s going to have to take him.’