Five-time
Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi joined Barcelona's academy La Masia at the age
of 13 in February 2001 after being offered a contract on a paper napkin by then
first-team director Charly Rexach. He graduated to the senior squad in 2004 and
has since then been the club's most successful player.
In
a recent documentary produced by OTRO titled “Becoming Leo Messi”, Messi who
may be winning his sixth Ballon d'Or this year opened up about the challenges
he faced upon arriving Barcelona from his native Argentina. Messi left Newell's
Old Boys - the club for which he played in Argentina - for Spain aged 13, and
faced tough times especially with his family's return to Argentina.
He
tells OTRO in the documentary: “I was in Barcelona for about 15 days
and then I returned to Argentina. After a few months, they called me and I said
yes, that I was willing to come. Let me come here and start my dream in
Barcelona. It was a happiness for me and my family.
“I
was looking forward to knowing if I was going to come here. The truth is that
at that time I did not understand the great change I was going to be making. I
was a boy. All I wanted was to come to Barcelona and play. I was not aware of
the difficulty of changing and how hard it was going to be for me and my
family.
“At
the start, the truth is that it was tough, it was hard. The most beautiful
thing is to play and not being able to play was really difficult. In the
middle, I went through injuries too. When I was able to play here after two,
three or four months, I got injured in my first game and I was out for another
month and a half.
“They
were hard times, but it never crossed my mind to go home. My brothers had gone
to Argentina, my sister's adaptation was the toughest of all, she was the
smallest and it was hard for them, with school and everything. They decided
that my mother would go to Argentina with her.
“I
was alone, and they asked me what I wanted to do, if we stayed or left, that
the decision was mine and that they would support me. I was always clear
that I wanted to stay.”
Indeed,
he did stay, and has since then taken Barcelona to greater heights.
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