receives another pass. This time the ball comes to his left foot: to tell the truth it hits him on the leg. But he takes two steps, accommodates the ball, brings it under control. And with little touches he starts a diagonal run across this vast obstacle course, dribbling past anyone who gets in his way .
‘Kick it, kick it!’ shouts Aparicio. ‘Pass it, pass it, Leo!’
Grandmother smiles .
Leo doesn’t pass it .
He’s very small. But from then on there was no way the coach was going to take him off. ‘He played like he’d been doing it all his life, him against the other thirteen,’ Salvador remembered much later on. That year he played the rest of the matches with the 1986 Grandoli side. And won titles .
Messi doesn’t remember anything from that day. His grandmother told him he scored two goals .
Leo wanted to play, of course, be it in the square, in the street, on his own, with his cousins and with Rodrigo and Matías, but, like any other kid, he wanted to do so with a kit, a team shirt, with a side like his brothers played in. And so at the age of five and after that day of surprises under the watchful eye of Celia, his smiling grandmother, in fact even before his first day at primary school, he began playing every week in what is called baby-football (seven-a-side, for those aged between 5 and 12) at the Grandoli club in the neighbourhood where he was born, located at number 4700 Laferrere Street, an institution founded in February 1980 by a group of local fathers hoping to form a competition for children from the area.
Take a look at this video: youtu.be/ojUNSuW6DHg
Leo is five years old. He is already demonstrating the same ease of dribbling and change of pace that he does today. The same joyous celebrations. The same diminutive stature compared to the others.
El Piqui gets the ball and looks for a gap, driving, dribbling. All his opponents follow him. So do his team-mates. If he can’t get in one way, he keeps the ball. He searches on the other flank, team-mates and opponents all around him. You have to understand that in Argentina it is considered vulgar to score – it is much better to create, assist and link and to leave your opponents in your wake. For that very reason many thought that there was little about this extraordinary player that needed putting right. Rarely would the cry of ‘Pass it, Leo’ be heard again. At any given moment, the way would open up, Leo would launch the ball close to the post, far from the goalkeeper. Goal.
There are those who like to say, probably to provoke you, that you need to see if Messi is capable of playing on a freezing Wednesday night in winter at, say, a rain-soaked Stoke. They need to look at the slopes, the stones, the small pieces of glass on the uneven football pitch on which he played for his first team, Grandoli’s pitch, which is provided by the local authority and can only be used at night because by day it is used by a school. The lighting was also poor.
From the age of two, Lionel and his maternal grandmother, Celia, walked the 15 blocks that separate the Messis’ house from his first club, Leo holding onto her arm as he struggled to keep up with her. Tucked under his arm was the ball he’d been given as a present. They were off to see Rodrigo and Matías. Later, just Matías. Finally now in the team of boys a year older than him, he took the same route to training on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Games were played on Saturdays.
‘She was too good. She lived for us, the grandchildren. She would put up with all our whims, the cousins used to fight to be allowed to sleep at her house. I don’t know whether my grandmother understood football but it was she who took us to play. She was my first fan at training, at the games. Her cries of encouragement were always with me,’ Leo told El Mundo Deportivo in a rare moment of personal reflection.
Celia did not watch football on television, nor would you find her at the Newell’s stadium.
‘Kick it, kick it!’ shouts Aparicio. ‘Pass it, pass it, Leo!’
Grandmother smiles .
Leo doesn’t pass it .
He’s very small. But from then on there was no way the coach was going to take him off. ‘He played like he’d been doing it all his life, him against the other thirteen,’ Salvador remembered much later on. That year he played the rest of the matches with the 1986 Grandoli side. And won titles .
Messi doesn’t remember anything from that day. His grandmother told him he scored two goals .
Leo wanted to play, of course, be it in the square, in the street, on his own, with his cousins and with Rodrigo and Matías, but, like any other kid, he wanted to do so with a kit, a team shirt, with a side like his brothers played in. And so at the age of five and after that day of surprises under the watchful eye of Celia, his smiling grandmother, in fact even before his first day at primary school, he began playing every week in what is called baby-football (seven-a-side, for those aged between 5 and 12) at the Grandoli club in the neighbourhood where he was born, located at number 4700 Laferrere Street, an institution founded in February 1980 by a group of local fathers hoping to form a competition for children from the area.
Take a look at this video: youtu.be/ojUNSuW6DHg
Leo is five years old. He is already demonstrating the same ease of dribbling and change of pace that he does today. The same joyous celebrations. The same diminutive stature compared to the others.
El Piqui gets the ball and looks for a gap, driving, dribbling. All his opponents follow him. So do his team-mates. If he can’t get in one way, he keeps the ball. He searches on the other flank, team-mates and opponents all around him. You have to understand that in Argentina it is considered vulgar to score – it is much better to create, assist and link and to leave your opponents in your wake. For that very reason many thought that there was little about this extraordinary player that needed putting right. Rarely would the cry of ‘Pass it, Leo’ be heard again. At any given moment, the way would open up, Leo would launch the ball close to the post, far from the goalkeeper. Goal.
There are those who like to say, probably to provoke you, that you need to see if Messi is capable of playing on a freezing Wednesday night in winter at, say, a rain-soaked Stoke. They need to look at the slopes, the stones, the small pieces of glass on the uneven football pitch on which he played for his first team, Grandoli’s pitch, which is provided by the local authority and can only be used at night because by day it is used by a school. The lighting was also poor.
From the age of two, Lionel and his maternal grandmother, Celia, walked the 15 blocks that separate the Messis’ house from his first club, Leo holding onto her arm as he struggled to keep up with her. Tucked under his arm was the ball he’d been given as a present. They were off to see Rodrigo and Matías. Later, just Matías. Finally now in the team of boys a year older than him, he took the same route to training on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Games were played on Saturdays.
‘She was too good. She lived for us, the grandchildren. She would put up with all our whims, the cousins used to fight to be allowed to sleep at her house. I don’t know whether my grandmother understood football but it was she who took us to play. She was my first fan at training, at the games. Her cries of encouragement were always with me,’ Leo told El Mundo Deportivo in a rare moment of personal reflection.
Celia did not watch football on television, nor would you find her at the Newell’s stadium.
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