Messi by Guillem Balagué Read Free Book Online Page B

wearing, he was easily recognised and asked to pose for photos. He’s had to get used to being photographed in the street. He never has any protection.
    He even has a long-term girlfriend from his home town. Antonella Roccuzzo, is, like Leo, from Rosario, and is the cousin of his best friend, Lucas Scaglia, who plays for Deportivo Cali in Colombia. He has known her since she was five and today she is the mother of his son, Thiago. But things could have worked out differently. Antonella and Leo stopped seeing each other for a while, when he was just another boy trying to attract her attention and she was a cute little girl who wasn’t interested. Leo went to Barcelona and, on a trip back home for the holidays, the romance blossomed.
    Make a note of this: Roccuzzo, Scaglia; Leo is a Messi and his mother’s maiden name is Cuccittini. The family are grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Italian immigrants who came to Rosario from Recanati and Ancona, in the Marche region of Italy. Lionel also has Spanish blood. Rosario attracted Europeans, mainly theSpanish and Italians who made up half the population in the first decades as the city grew. One of Leo’s great-grandmothers, Rosa Mateu i Gese, came from Blancafort de Tragó de Noguera, an area in the Pyrenees near Lleida, and emigrated to Argentina as a child. Crossing the Atlantic she met a man from Bellcaire d’Urgell, José Pérez Solé. When you leave home, new relationships are strong and long-lasting; they are the life raft of the immigrant. This is the real New World, the foundation of a new life. Rosa and José supported each other throughout the transition to a new beginning in a foreign land. They eventually married in Argentina and had three children, one of whom was Rosa María, wife of Eusebio Messi, the parents of Jorge Messi.
    Recently, Corriere della Sera carried out an interesting exercise with Leo, reminding him of the Messi family roots.
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They were from Recanati, like Giacomo Leopardi.
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Who was he?
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A great poet: Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle / e questa siepe, che da tanta parte / dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude .
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I’ve never heard of him. I’m sorry.
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Maybe you’ve heard of the Virgin of Loreto. It’s close.
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No. I’m sorry. Where is it?
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La Marche. Central Italy. Have you never been curious to go and see where your grandparents came from?
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No. I think my father knows the place. He has been there and has seen our relatives. Maybe one day I’ll go as well.
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Have you at least seen the ‘Hotel of Immigrants’ in Buenos Aires? It’s where most of the Italians who first arrived in the country based themselves.
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No, I don’t know it.
    Then the journalist showed him some old black and white photographs of those who’d gone in search of their fortune on the Pampas. ‘Stern-looking women with shawls and long, black skirts. Skinny, barefoot children. Enormous casseroles for food. The men in dark jackets, white shirts and felt hats. The eyes gazing into the void of the unknown, the kind of look that ought to be described in the lyrics of a melancholy song.’
    Leo looked at them with some curiosity, but little else.
    For Leo, everything starts and finishes in Rosario.
    The Messi/Pérez family settled in Las Heras. Close by lived the Cuccittini Olivera parents of Celia, who were also of Italian descent. In the neighbourhood the spark of love between Jorge and Celia was struck and they wasted little time: aged just 15 and 13, they realised what was happening and didn’t fight it. Five years later, when Jorge returned from his military service, they married.
    Soon they were planning to go and live in Australia. Would an Australian Leo have been a footballer, or a footballing star? We’ll return to that later, but as it turned out the Messis preferred to carry on living in their parents’ neighbourhood. Celia worked for years in a workshop producing magnetic coils for industrial use and, like everyone else