“When I saw him at the airport, I said to myself: ‘This kid’s too small to play football.’ I thought they’d tricked me.” When the kid started kicking a ball, however, any doubts about his ability were quickly dispelled.
Now, over 15 years later, the diminutive genius in question is the proud owner of five FIFA Ballons d’Or, while the man recalling the very first day he set eyes on him is the proud owner of a napkin, a very valuable napkin, one that changed the history of FC Barcelona.
That man is Horacio Gaggioli, a football agent long based in Spain, who had heard great things from his Argentinian partners of a very talented boy from Rosario by the name of Lionel Messi. The kid was only 11 when those reports started coming through, which was too young by Gaggioli’s reckoning.
Two years later, however, and he was ready to cross the Atlantic, as Gaggioli explained in an interview with FIFA.com: “The family wanted him to try out with a European team, in whichever city I was living in so that he’d have a contact there. At the time I was about to go and work for a company in Madrid and I asked them to hold on so I could sort out my future and see where he could have his trial. If I ended up going to the capital, we’d have a try-out with Real Madrid or Atletico.”
