Messi by Guillem Balagué Read Free Book Online

end the spirit of the city is appropriately reflected in one goal in particular, according to The Guinness Book of Records the most celebrated one in history. It happened on 19 December 1971 in a match played in suffocating heat in Buenos Aires between Newell’s and Central. It was the semi-finals of the National Championship and the only time the two clubs had faced each other in the country’s capital. Neither side was able to find the opposition’s net in a match that was taken up with the battle to win control. Then, 13 minutes from time, there was a foul close to the Newell’s penalty area. Aldo Pedro Poy, the Rosario Central striker, made his way into the area. As he did so he called out to one of the cameramen – what was it? A premonition? A prediction? Call it what you will – ‘Get your cameras ready, this one’s going in.’ And so it happened. Poy, jostling with his marker, before getting away from him, soaring into the air with his body arched, his arms extended. Goal. A flying header. So what if the ball had brushed the stomach of central defender DiRienzo, wrong-footing the goalkeeper. Goal, a definitive one, too: the eternal rival had been knocked out in the semi-finals. Central went on to win the final, the first title the canallas had won in their history, but not as celebrated as Poy’s diving header. The ambitiously titled Organización Canalla for Latin America has for the past three decades met every 19 December on the pitch at the Central stadium: on this day someone crosses the ball and Poy re-enacts his diving header. Lately, however, the problem, as Poy himself says, is not so much making the dive, but ‘getting up again after it’.
    This is Rosario. This is football. Messi did not rise out ofnothing. Neither did Alfredo Di Stéfano or Diego Armando Maradona. Perhaps it’s not about an Argentinian gene, but one thing for certain is that the three were born in a country where every day football takes you to the bigger glory (the fame, the money) or the smaller one (the recognition of all your neighbours).
    But as Martino says in the magazine Panenka , this excellent raw material and passion that is found in the streets of Rosario has to be channelled in one way or another: ‘To this end the work of Jorge Griffa has been vital. A man who, after retiring as player, was quite clear about what he wanted. He had no ambitions to become the manager of a team in the Primera, but rather the creator of players and he never betrayed his original ideas. From the mid-seventies, and for 20 years thereafter, he left an indelible mark on Newell’s Old Boys. Later he went on to become youth coach at Boca, but always with the same idea; to be a forger of players. Griffa has a great talent in this area and a clinical eye for spotting talent. Even to the extent of enlisting assistants. Marcelo Bielsa was one of his assistants in the glory years. He crossed the country from end to end, not just Rosario and the surrounding areas, searching, always searching, for hidden gems. Bielsa travelled thousands of kilometres in his tiny Fiat 147 in this tireless mission that bore so much fruit for the “ Leprosos ”. His hard work was rewarded. Newell’s were champions in 1988 with José Yudica and in 1991 and 1992 with Marcelo Bielsa as first team coaches.’ Griffa also spotted the talent of Messi at a crucial moment in what had been, till then, a brief footballing career.
    You breathe football everywhere in Rosario, but, curiously, the air doesn’t smell of Messi. There are hardly any photos, or pictures, nor even advertisements depicting Leo. Everybody has a story about ‘the Flea’ but the Santaferina city does not seem to want to gloat. It’s almost as if it is considered vulgar to have his face posted everywhere. Or perhaps they have just decided to respect his low profile.
    But for Leo, Rosario is everything. When you ask him what his favourite memories are, he is in no doubt. ‘My home, my