Caioli Suarez, Messi, Neymar Suarez, Messi, Neymar

Inside Barcelona's Unstoppable Strikeforce
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-906850-87-6
Verlag: Icon Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Reihe: Luca Caioli

Barcelona has long been regarded as a home of beautiful football. In July 2014, already boasting Lionel Messi and Neymar, Barça added Luis Suárez to complete a forward line that was undeniably special, even by their own high standards. They had taken greatly differing paths from South America to the starting line-up at the Nou Camp. Messi joined Barcelona aged just thirteen, Neymar served a spectacular apprenticeship in Brazil and Suárez enjoyed spells with Ajax and Liverpool - three prestigious educations with an emphasis on attractive play. Through exclusive testimonies from friends, families, managers and teammates, acclaimed football writer Luca Caioli documents their individual journeys and examines the phenomenal success of Barça's 'MSN' years to date, including the 2015/16 league and cup double.

Luca Caioli is the bestselling author of Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and Suarez. A renowned Italian sports journalist, he lives in Spain corresponding for SKY Italia and Corriere della Sera.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Caioli, Luca

Leseproben

Chapter 1

The scouts

Luis Suárez, Leo Messi and Neymar Júnior almost certainly wouldn’t be global football stars if not for the people who discovered them. Or at least, the road to success would have been significantly longer. Because it’s not enough just to have great skills. Becoming a football star is as much about being lucky enough to get noticed – having someone recognise your potential even while you’re still a youngster playing a childhood game. Here we pay tribute to the three people who ‘discovered’ the three Barça forwards.

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El Cabeza or Cabezón – ‘Big Head’, as Suárez’s friends and family call him – owes a lot to his paternal uncle, Sergio ‘El Chango’ Suárez. He was the one who taught him how to kick a ball at four years of age, when Luis was the Deportivo Artigas mascot. El Chango lived in a modest, low-rise house in Salto, in Barrio Cerro. Despite the rundown nature of the area, the locals took pride in their surroundings.

El Chango is shy. He works as a carpenter, but he previously played for amateur Uruguayan teams Deportivo, Fénix and Colombia – a couple of which are now defunct. When asked what Luis was like back then, his uncle smiles. ‘He was just like he is now. Football was everything to him. He woke up with a football and went to bed with one.’ He paints a picture of a strong player with a constant desire to improve. ‘At first Luis was a bit awkward with the ball, but he committed to every shot. He never left a play unfinished. He wanted to win. He wanted to score, he wanted to be the goal-scorer, whatever it took. Just as he does now.’

Is it really possible that one of the most prolific strikers in Premier League history was so clumsy as a child? ‘He was better in defence, so much so that when we played against tough opponents, I put him in goal,’ admits Sergio. ‘He didn’t like that but he did his best. He saved the day on many occasions.’

It is difficult to imagine Barcelona’s latest star signing as a goalie, but El Chango has proof in the form of a plastic bag bulging with mementos. With a smile just like his nephew’s, the greying, bespectacled uncle flips through the photos. There is the Deportivo Artigas kids’ team with Luis in front of goal, there are photos of the kids lined up with arms folded and serious expressions, staring into the lens – just like adult players do before a big match. They are wearing red with white and blue stripes and light blue shorts. ‘The strip is pretty much the same as that of Independiente Argentino,’ notes Sergio. It’s hard to spot Luis. ‘You should recognise him here,’ he says, pointing out a dark, scruffy-haired kid with a cheeky smile They are lined up in order of height at the edge of the tufty grass pitch. Sergio is also visible – considerably younger, with dark brown hair, busy lining them up. Luis is third along with shorts that are too big for him, holding back a smile.

Another picture shows Luis in goal, with a haircut reminiscent of the Beatles. This time he’s in an orange strip, standing in the second row with his hands behind his back, right next to his uncle who is trying to get a kid in front of him to stop fidgeting. The trip down memory lane brings back plenty of memories. One of the best is when, ‘in the middle of a match, Luis raised his hand and asked the referee to stop play so he could go to the toilet. Another one is when he was five years old. He was playing when he saw his brother, Paolo, in the crowd, eating a piping hot pizza. Luis kicked the ball into touch and ran to Paolo to get a slice. Paolo told him to get back on the pitch but Luis was having none of it. Luis was yelling, he wanted the pizza. Typical boyish antics. Luis was a good kid, just like he is now.’

Luis has always acknowledged that it was his uncle who taught him to kick a ball, but El Chango is reluctant to take any credit: ‘I didn’t teach him anything. He already had the basics. What he has achieved is all down to him.’

It’s a very different picture from the one painted by Braian Rodríguez, a striker with Chilean first division club Everton de Viña del Mar, who also played at Deportivo Artigas as a kid. ‘El Chango taught us to love football and to live it with passion. This was important advice which, as a kid, stays with you for the rest of your life. He taught us how to move on the pitch and caress the ball. He explained how to kick, tackle, free yourself from markers and finish off a move. He taught us that football is a team game and that there is no point playing for yourself, that passing is key. All of these things are counterintuitive when you are a kid. He was a great teacher. Without his help, we may not have made it to where we are today.’

* * *

Leo Messi may not have made it to the top if the late Salvador Ricardo Aparicio hadn’t believed in him when he was just a boy. Aparicio spent his whole life working on the railways. As a youngster he wore the number 4 shirt for Club Fortín and, more than 30 years ago, he coached children on Grandoli’s pitch. ‘I needed one more to complete the team of children born in 1986. I was waiting for the final player with the shirt in my hands while the others were warming up. But he didn’t show up, and there was this little kid kicking the ball against the stands,’ recalled Don Apa – as he was affectionately known in Leo’s hometown of Rosario – whenever anyone asked him how he discovered the Blaugrana star. ‘The cogs were turning and I said to myself, damn … I don’t know if he knows how to play but … So I went to speak to the boy’s grandmother, who was really into football, and I said to her: “Lend him to me.” She wanted to see him on the pitch. She had asked me many times to let him try out. On many occasions she would tell me about all the little guy’s talents. The mother, or the aunt, I can’t remember which, didn’t want him to play: “He’s so small, the others are all huge.” To reassure her I told her: I’ll stand him over here, and if they attack him I’ll stop the game and take him off.” Well … I gave him the shirt and he put it on. The first ball came his way, he looked at it and … nothing.’ Why? ‘He’s left-footed, that’s why he didn’t get to the ball.’ He goes on: ‘The second it came to his left foot, he latched onto it, and went past one guy, then another and another. I was yelling at him: “Kick it, kick it.” He was terrified someone would hurt him but he kept going and going.’ Leo’s first coach couldn’t recall whether he scored the goal, but what he did remember was that he had never seen anything like it. ‘That one’s never coming off,’ he said to himself. And he never took him off.

Like El Chango, Aparicio also kept a bag full of precious memories from the old days. His favourite was a photo of a green pitch, a team of kids wearing red shirts and, standing just in front of a rather younger-looking Don Apa, the smallest of them all – the white trousers almost reaching his armpits, the shirt too large, the expression very serious, bowlegged. It’s Leo. He looks like a little bird, like a flea, as his brother Rodrigo used to call him.

‘He was born in ’87 and he played with the ’86 team. He was the smallest in stature and the youngest, but he really stood out. And they punished him hard, but he was a distinctive player, with supernatural talent. He was born knowing how to play. When we would go to a game, people would pile in to see him. When he got the ball he destroyed it. He was unbelievable, they couldn’t stop him. He scored four or five goals a game. He scored one, against the Club de Amanecer, which was the kind you see in adverts. I remember it well: he went past everyone, including the keeper. What was his playing style? The same as it is now – free. What was he like? He was a serious kid, he always stayed quietly by his grandmother’s side. He never complained. If they hurt him he would cry sometimes but he would get up and keep running. That’s why I argue with everyone, I defend him, when they say that he’s too much of a soloist, or that he’s nothing special, or that he’s greedy,’ the coach said after Lionel became a global star.

The first time Leo came home from Spain, Don Apa went to visit him. He never forgot that particular reunion. ‘When they saw me it was madness,’ he used to say. ‘I went in the morning and when I returned it was one o’clock the next morning. We spent the whole time chatting about what football was like over there in Spain.’ On another occasion, when the neighbourhood organised a party in Lionel’s honour, the old maestro didn’t get to see his former pupil as Leo wasn’t able to make it. He called later to apologise, with a promise to see him next time. Señor Aparicio was never bitter about it – on the contrary, he always spoke with much affection about the little boy he coached all those years ago. He even cried watching him on TV as he scored his first goal in a Barça shirt. His daughter, who was in the other room, asked: ‘What’s wrong dad?’ ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘it’s emotional.’

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