would sometimes explain to others what he was trying to say. The one who would pass him the crib sheets, the little notes, either on a ruler or a rubber. The one who wrote on the small pieces of paper that she passed to Leo during his exams. The one who brought him his afternoon snacks. The one who told him, you’re going to be sorry if you don’t learn things now, and the one who heard him reply, yes, I’ll regret it, but I can’t do it. The one who explained his absence if he skipped class one day, which occasionally happened. The one who told the little white lie that she was his cousin.
The one who learned of the fact that he was injecting himself with hormones (or who was suffering from a deficiency of the growth hormone, it’s the same difference) because, on one trip at the end of the term, Leo’s mother asked Cintia’s mother, who was travelling with the kids, to make sure that he was injecting himself every night.
‘Lionel was small, and always went around here barefoot and played with the ball,’ says another neighbour, Ruben Manicabale. ‘Many times we used to get mad at him, grab him and throw him to the ground, but he used to get up and carry on playing.’
A member of the Quiroga family, neighbours across the street, remembered that ‘the kids didn’t play all day with the ball, but he did. They all left and he carried on by himself by the gate. Mymother scolded him many times because it was late and he carried on with the ball.’
‘When he played sometimes he would be hit, fall and cry, but he soon stopped and carried on running. You could see he was different: the skill he had, the speed …’ remembers Cintia.
It’s said that Rodrigo was the first person to call him ‘the Flea’. In truth no one in the neighbourhood gave him that name. The family believe that it was a Mexican football commentator who, years later, gave him the nickname. They are talking about Enrique Bermúdez, considered one of the most prestigious voices in the Castilian language, a champion of pure entertainment, a narrator of what Jorge Valdano describes as ‘the most important of the least important’. The ‘dog’ Bermúdez – that’s how he’s known – was a rocker, hippy, singer and film extra, before becoming a narrator and a creator of hundreds of nicknames (Adolfo Ríos became ‘Christ’s Archer’, Rafael Márquez ‘the Kaiser of Zamora’ and David Beckham ‘Blue Shoes’ because of the Smurf-coloured boots he wore) and of the outlandish description of the footballing style of Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola’s : ‘yours, mine, have it, lend it, caress it, kiss it, give it to me’. But Bermúdez never claimed to be the creator of the nickname. Whoever it was still remains anonymous.
In any case it was clear that Leo had something special. ‘He is a shining light sent by God. You know when someone says, “he will make it, he will”? He was a footballer from the day he was born,’ says Claudia, Cintia’s mother, who sometimes baby-sat the young Leo.
‘He played with a number five ball, so big that he could have hit it anywhere and yet he controlled it perfectly,’ remembers his brother Matías. ‘It was something beautiful, you had to see it, and whoever saw it for the first time would go back to see it.’
The ball, with a diameter that reached up to his knee, seemed stuck to his left foot, never too far away, small touches that enabled him to keep control, light strikes with the side of his boot, the ball always on the ground to avoid the possibility of a failure of technique that would cause the ball to bounce off his knee or his shin and run away from him to where the older boys could get it back.
He had extraordinary co-ordination, a stature that helped him control the ball and natural speed. He challenged the older boys and he shone. Was this a divine gift or natural talent? There’ll be time todiscuss that later.
What’s more (his face redder than a tomato), he was a great
The one who learned of the fact that he was injecting himself with hormones (or who was suffering from a deficiency of the growth hormone, it’s the same difference) because, on one trip at the end of the term, Leo’s mother asked Cintia’s mother, who was travelling with the kids, to make sure that he was injecting himself every night.
‘Lionel was small, and always went around here barefoot and played with the ball,’ says another neighbour, Ruben Manicabale. ‘Many times we used to get mad at him, grab him and throw him to the ground, but he used to get up and carry on playing.’
A member of the Quiroga family, neighbours across the street, remembered that ‘the kids didn’t play all day with the ball, but he did. They all left and he carried on by himself by the gate. Mymother scolded him many times because it was late and he carried on with the ball.’
‘When he played sometimes he would be hit, fall and cry, but he soon stopped and carried on running. You could see he was different: the skill he had, the speed …’ remembers Cintia.
It’s said that Rodrigo was the first person to call him ‘the Flea’. In truth no one in the neighbourhood gave him that name. The family believe that it was a Mexican football commentator who, years later, gave him the nickname. They are talking about Enrique Bermúdez, considered one of the most prestigious voices in the Castilian language, a champion of pure entertainment, a narrator of what Jorge Valdano describes as ‘the most important of the least important’. The ‘dog’ Bermúdez – that’s how he’s known – was a rocker, hippy, singer and film extra, before becoming a narrator and a creator of hundreds of nicknames (Adolfo Ríos became ‘Christ’s Archer’, Rafael Márquez ‘the Kaiser of Zamora’ and David Beckham ‘Blue Shoes’ because of the Smurf-coloured boots he wore) and of the outlandish description of the footballing style of Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola’s : ‘yours, mine, have it, lend it, caress it, kiss it, give it to me’. But Bermúdez never claimed to be the creator of the nickname. Whoever it was still remains anonymous.
In any case it was clear that Leo had something special. ‘He is a shining light sent by God. You know when someone says, “he will make it, he will”? He was a footballer from the day he was born,’ says Claudia, Cintia’s mother, who sometimes baby-sat the young Leo.
‘He played with a number five ball, so big that he could have hit it anywhere and yet he controlled it perfectly,’ remembers his brother Matías. ‘It was something beautiful, you had to see it, and whoever saw it for the first time would go back to see it.’
The ball, with a diameter that reached up to his knee, seemed stuck to his left foot, never too far away, small touches that enabled him to keep control, light strikes with the side of his boot, the ball always on the ground to avoid the possibility of a failure of technique that would cause the ball to bounce off his knee or his shin and run away from him to where the older boys could get it back.
He had extraordinary co-ordination, a stature that helped him control the ball and natural speed. He challenged the older boys and he shone. Was this a divine gift or natural talent? There’ll be time todiscuss that later.
What’s more (his face redder than a tomato), he was a great
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