By Ben Hayward | Spanish
Football Writer Argentina were World Cup
holders back in 1987 and
Diego Maradona was the planet's finest footballer but, in a poor part of the
country's third-largest city, Rosario, something very
significant also took place: Lionel Andres Messi was
born. The third son to Jorge, a steel worker, and Celia, a
cleaner, young Lionel weighed in at just three kilos
and was a mere 47 centimetres in height. He grew
into the greatest goalscorer in Champions League
history - but it was anything but easy. Football was part of Leo's life from day one. Rosario
Central were crowned champions of Argentina two
weeks before Messi's birth, but little Lionel would
inherit his father's passion for the city's other club:
Newell's Old Boys. "When his mother sent him off to run errands, Leo
always took his football with him," his brother Matias
once said. "And if he didn't have one, he would make
one out of plastic bags or socks." Eyes on the ball | A young Messi at Newell's Even from the age of three, Leo and the ball were best
friends. "I got given my first football when I was very
young: three, maybe, or four," Messi said a few years
ago. "It was a present and from then on it was the
only present I ever wanted, Christmas, birthday or
whatever: a ball." Young Leo went along to watch his brothers play at
local club Grandoli, a modest team with no money
and a dirt pitch in the south of the city. Their youth
coach back then was Salvador Aparicio - and one
night he found himself a player short. "I looked up to the stands and saw him playing with
a ball," he told Goal in a recording for partofthegametv before his death in 2008. "But he
was so small, so we decided to wait for the other
player to turn up. But he didn't, so I asked Lionel's
mother if I could borrow him. "She didn't like the idea. She said he had never played
[in a match] before. His grandmother was there too
and she said: 'Come on, let him play'! So they let me
borrow him. "The first time the ball came to him he just looked at it
and let it pass. He didn't even move. But the next time
the ball came to him, it virtually hit him on the left leg.
Then, he controlled it and started running across the
pitch. He dribbled past everyone crossing his path. I
was screaming for him to shoot, but he was too small. Ever since that day, he was always in my team." That was at the age of five and, before long, Messi
was not only dribbling, but shooting and scoring too.