Messi Read Online Free Page A

said one of the spectators. Twenty, twenty-one …
    Cesc: When he started to touch the ball we saw that he was different from the rest of the boys who came for trials.
    Gradually Rodolfo Borrell set up some one on ones and shots on goal. And when Leo got it … problems.
    Cesc: First, he made me look like a complete fool and stuck it in. And as a young player I had a special talent in defensive one against one situations. Now I’d lost it. I used to steal the ball with ease, I don’t know how I did it. Anyway, he made me look so stupid you wouldn’t believe it. Okay, the first time you’re not expecting it, you’re a bit too relaxed. But he did it to me again and again.
    Messi was dazzling, with his dribbling, his finishing, hisconsistency. The youngsters entertained themselves watching the new boy’s moves. He had won the group’s respect. From that moment on, anyone who called him ‘the midget’ did so with admiration, even affection.
    From the stands you could hear: ‘Oh, wow. This is something else.’
    Leo travelled to the Mini and the pitches adjacent to it by underground from the Plaza España. Four stops on the Green line to Las Corts. As there wasn’t training every day, with his father and one of Jorge’s or Minguella’s colleagues they passed the time strolling beside the port, with an occasional visit to a museum, although he didn’t spend a lot of time in them – they didn’t make a great impression on the kid. The tourist bus took them to the Sagrada Familia, to the port, the zoo. He would tour the Old City. Tuesday was a free day. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday he was part of the group and joined them in the drills on the clay court. Friday they would concentrate more on tactics and he took a less active role. The weekend was also free for him; naturally he couldn’t play official games yet.
    It was still sunny in September, the heat less fierce than in August and better for walking at any time of the day. So the Argentinian group would travel to Sitges, spending mornings on the beach, and took in a football match, his first visit to the Camp Nou. The first Saturday of his stay he saw Barcelona play there. The opponents, Racing Santander. Patrick Kluivert scored a brace, Marc Overmars the third. The men of Llorenç Serra Ferrer, not the most popular of Barcelona coaches, won 3–1. Leo took a photo from the stands. The stadium was enormous but the crowd made little noise.
    They wanted to go to the Barcelona−Milan group stage Champions League match on 26 September. They couldn’t get tickets. The Italians won 2–0.
    The rest of the time Leo was never far away from a ball. They played head tennis in the hotel bedroom and he would take the ball out onto the terrace to weave past imaginary opponents, to play keepy-uppy, to caress it. Television filled the remaining gaps.
    Lionel did not say much; he wasn’t timid so much as introverted, charming to any adults who approached him, monosyllabic to histeam-mates in those first days. Off the pitch there was a lot of killing time waiting for the return from Sydney of Charly Rexach because no one would give the nod to confirm his signing.
    On the pitch he was something else. Next to his new team-mates he didn’t seem like that timid boy who the day before was quietly eating a pizza, or a hamburger or a plate of pasta. Or just walking, lost in his own thoughts.
    When he was alone in his room, or just before going to sleep, by the light of his bedside lamp he would take out a thick pen syringe and inject whatever leg needed injecting that day.
    And the same routine the following day. Touches of the ball, a visit to the city, pizza, training in the afternoon. An injection.
    ‘Leo, do what you know. Get the ball, don’t pass to anyone, and head for goal.’ Jorge Messi’s advice was about exploiting the very talents that had brought him to Barcelona, but also a natural reaction to Borrell’s insistence, as a Barcelona trainer, that they should play