Such was the Argentinian’s talent that he was fast-tracked to the senior team in only four years after playing briefly for Barca’s B and C teams. Charly Rexach, the then first team director of FCB, famously got Messi to sign his first contract with the club on a paper napkin. In 2000, at the age of 13, Lionel Messi joined Barcelona’s youth academy, the famed La Masia, and the rest is history. The Catalan club had the resources to easily foot the bill for Lionel Messi’s treatment and their world-class youth setup also made the move an alluring prospect. In his time of need, in stepped Spanish giants Barcelona. It is rumoured that River Plate, Argentina’s biggest and most famous football club, was interested in signing Lionel Messi at the time but backed out because of the high expenses required to treat GHD. Despite his promise on the football field, Old Boys also shied away from the expenses. The club claims that during the half-time of Maradona’s debut match for the Nuls, a six-year Lionel Messi performed tricks on the football ground.ĭuring his time at Newell's Old Boys, Lionel Messi was diagnosed with Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD), a condition caused due to the body producing insufficient amounts of growth hormone, leading to impaired growth and development.Ī rare disorder which affects only one in 10,000 children, treatment for GHD was expensive - way beyond what Messi’s family could afford. Incidentally, Diego Maradona played for Newell's Old Boys briefly in the 1993-94 season. La Maquina del '87 remained unbeaten for three years. The team, which became famous as the La Maquina del '87 or The Machine of '87, would go on to dominate what was called ‘baby football’ in Argentina - seven-a-side games children under 11 play in the country. Soon after Lionel Messi joined the Nuls and was inducted into its youth setup, the young Lionel Messi became the talisman for the club’s batch of ‘87, meant for boys who were born in 1987. Both of Messi’s elder brothers had played youth-team football for the Nuls. However, the move to Newell's Old Boys made sense as it was a professional club and offered better infrastructure and opportunities.īesides, Lionel Messi’s family supported Newell's Old Boys, or the Nuls, and reportedly the football legend’s uncles and aunts gifted him a red and black jersey of the club on his first birthday. While the circumstances of Messi’s departure from Grandoli were never documented, an Al Jazeera report later reported that Messi's family fell out with the club officials. Lionel Messi spent four years developing at Grandoli before joining the youth setup of Newell's Old Boys, one of Rosario’s biggest clubs which plays in the Argentine Primera Division. Lionel Messi’s second club: Newell's Old Boys It was an amazing time,” Lionel Messi recalled. My grandmother came back and told him, ‘Buy him football boots, I’ll bring him to training next week’ - and that’s when I started. “Apparently when I went in, I did some things. The coach, however, was concerned with Lionel Messi’s small physique at the time and was afraid that he might get hurt playing against boys one year senior to him.īut Leo’s grandmother was a persistent woman and eventually got her way. The ‘86 team’, a team one year older than me, was playing and they needed a player - so my grandmother told the coach 'put him in the team',” Lionel Messi reminisced during an interview. “One of my brothers or cousins was playing and we used to go there (to the Grandoli club) every day. Interestingly, Leo’s doting grandmother, Celia Olivera Cuccittini, had a big role to play behind the move. Lionel Messi joined his first club Grandoli, a local neighbourhood establishment near his house in Rosario, when he was five years old. Lionel Messi’s teams Yearsīorn in the city of Rosario, in Argentina’s Santa Fe province, Lionel Messi was introduced to football at an early age and used to play with his elder brothers and cousins growing up. Taking into account the two Argentinian youth clubs he played, Lionel Messi has only played for five clubs in his career - a number quite low for modern-day footballers who end up playing for several clubs over the course of their career. Messi only recently signed for US club Inter Miami and is yet to make his debut for the Major League Soccer (MLS) side. However, over the course of his 19-year-long professional career, Lionel Messi has only graced three clubs, Spain's FC Barcelona, France's Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and USA's Inter Miami. After all, the Argentinian, a record seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, is one of the best players of all time. There’s not a single football team in the world which wouldn’t want to have Lionel Messi on its roster.
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