the actors and the audience, are some goal nets .
Gabriel Digerolamo (coach, NOB): The day they brought him to me I said, ‘well, this is something totally different from what one would expect, no?’
Ernesto Vecchio (coach, NOB): He had a spectacular technique; no one taught him that, he was born with it.
Gabriel Digerolamo: You never expected that something so diminutive could make such an explosive impact. He was someone who thought about what he was going to do, and then did it: he went from right to left, from left to right, through the centre, moving deep, and always with the goal in his mind, always there, inside his head.
Ernesto Vecchio: Before he even got to Newell’s the whole of Rosario was talking about the talent of a young boy who played for Abanderado Grandoli.
Diego Rovira (No. 9 with the juniors at NOB): I had arrived at Newell’s halfway through 1998. My first training session wasat the Bella Vista site, where the first team train. We played a friendly against Renato Cesarini. We won 7–0, something like that. Three of the goals were scored by a tiny, extremely quick and skilful little feller. I didn’t know anyone, but he was the first to catch my attention. It was Leo.
Rosario was getting to know Leo because he was starring in the inter-school tournaments, like the popular Alfi league. Here you would meet technical directors, scouts, trainers with eyes sharpened by years of watching coaching sessions and ‘baby’ football matches. Rodrigo and Matías were in the junior ranks of NOB and it was Rodrigo who suggested that Leo was ready to play for Newell’s in preliminary tournaments at the start of the Rosario season. So at the beginning of 1994, at the age of six years and seven months, he played for a few weeks with a number of the Newell’s youth teams, afternoon and evening .
Roberto Mensi (director of NOB): At the time of picking a player, primarily what you have in mind are his technical qualities, then his physical attributes and finally you take a look at the home life of the boy.
Quique Domínguez (coach, NOB): At Newell’s there was a philosophy, driven by Jorge Bernardo Griffa, a former player with Atlético de Madrid: Newell’s has to have the best players, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of losing a great talent. So I would take my car and stop and wait five minutes watching a kids’ game and, if there was something that grabbed my attention, I would get out of the car, get to the side of the pitch and ask, ‘are you the mother?’, ‘yes’, ‘has your boy signed for any club?’, and if he had, I would say, ‘wouldn’t he like to play for Newell’s?’ We would steal them before they could be stolen from us. By way of natural selection really, Leo always played alongside the best players in the area.
Gabriel Digerolamo: Claudio Vivas came to see me, the one who was assistant to Marcelo Bielsa, and said, ‘You are going to have a boy here who is out of this world.’ He played three or four games with my team, and with other coaches at the club, like Walter Lucero, a few others.
Quique Domínguez: When it came to comparing Leo with his rivalsin terms of quality the gap was vast, and I mean vast. Up against a defender, eight out of ten times Leo would do exactly what he wanted; the defender got it right and almost recovered the ball once and lost possession on the other occasion. The difference was enormous. Today, Leo seems still to be a superior player compared to the rest, but the rest are now players from Real Madrid, from Serie A in Italy, from the Premiership in England …
Gabriel Digerolamo: At the end of the preliminary tournament we asked Leo if he wanted to play for us.
Ernesto Vecchio: After watching him play, we spoke to the parents and reached an agreement. He joined Newell’s. All the Messis are Newell’s fans.
Except for Matías. As we know, he supports Rosario Central .
And so it was that on 21 March 1994, just shy of his seventh birthday,
Gabriel Digerolamo (coach, NOB): The day they brought him to me I said, ‘well, this is something totally different from what one would expect, no?’
Ernesto Vecchio (coach, NOB): He had a spectacular technique; no one taught him that, he was born with it.
Gabriel Digerolamo: You never expected that something so diminutive could make such an explosive impact. He was someone who thought about what he was going to do, and then did it: he went from right to left, from left to right, through the centre, moving deep, and always with the goal in his mind, always there, inside his head.
Ernesto Vecchio: Before he even got to Newell’s the whole of Rosario was talking about the talent of a young boy who played for Abanderado Grandoli.
Diego Rovira (No. 9 with the juniors at NOB): I had arrived at Newell’s halfway through 1998. My first training session wasat the Bella Vista site, where the first team train. We played a friendly against Renato Cesarini. We won 7–0, something like that. Three of the goals were scored by a tiny, extremely quick and skilful little feller. I didn’t know anyone, but he was the first to catch my attention. It was Leo.
Rosario was getting to know Leo because he was starring in the inter-school tournaments, like the popular Alfi league. Here you would meet technical directors, scouts, trainers with eyes sharpened by years of watching coaching sessions and ‘baby’ football matches. Rodrigo and Matías were in the junior ranks of NOB and it was Rodrigo who suggested that Leo was ready to play for Newell’s in preliminary tournaments at the start of the Rosario season. So at the beginning of 1994, at the age of six years and seven months, he played for a few weeks with a number of the Newell’s youth teams, afternoon and evening .
Roberto Mensi (director of NOB): At the time of picking a player, primarily what you have in mind are his technical qualities, then his physical attributes and finally you take a look at the home life of the boy.
Quique Domínguez (coach, NOB): At Newell’s there was a philosophy, driven by Jorge Bernardo Griffa, a former player with Atlético de Madrid: Newell’s has to have the best players, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of losing a great talent. So I would take my car and stop and wait five minutes watching a kids’ game and, if there was something that grabbed my attention, I would get out of the car, get to the side of the pitch and ask, ‘are you the mother?’, ‘yes’, ‘has your boy signed for any club?’, and if he had, I would say, ‘wouldn’t he like to play for Newell’s?’ We would steal them before they could be stolen from us. By way of natural selection really, Leo always played alongside the best players in the area.
Gabriel Digerolamo: Claudio Vivas came to see me, the one who was assistant to Marcelo Bielsa, and said, ‘You are going to have a boy here who is out of this world.’ He played three or four games with my team, and with other coaches at the club, like Walter Lucero, a few others.
Quique Domínguez: When it came to comparing Leo with his rivalsin terms of quality the gap was vast, and I mean vast. Up against a defender, eight out of ten times Leo would do exactly what he wanted; the defender got it right and almost recovered the ball once and lost possession on the other occasion. The difference was enormous. Today, Leo seems still to be a superior player compared to the rest, but the rest are now players from Real Madrid, from Serie A in Italy, from the Premiership in England …
Gabriel Digerolamo: At the end of the preliminary tournament we asked Leo if he wanted to play for us.
Ernesto Vecchio: After watching him play, we spoke to the parents and reached an agreement. He joined Newell’s. All the Messis are Newell’s fans.
Except for Matías. As we know, he supports Rosario Central .
And so it was that on 21 March 1994, just shy of his seventh birthday,
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