Rosario’s mythical figure Lionel Messi is hoping for the biggest prize of all, the World Cup

Lionel Andres Messi is a mythical figure in his hometown of Rosario. The prodigal son hoping to win the greatest prize of all. The most famous footballer in a city that prides itself on its ability to produce footballers on an industrial scale. Di Maria, Lavezzi, Mascherano, Lavezzi, Demichelis, Maxi Rodriguez, Garay, Banega, Pochettino, Batistuta, Heinze, Valdano, Lo Celso, Angel Correa.

Rosario is proud of him even though they never see him in the Blitz.

The memories of a skinny little boy playing baby football for Gandoli or Newell’s Old Boys are legendary. Everyone has a story of watching a very young Lionel dominate soccer games in Rosario.

Lionel Messi aims to win his first and last World Cup on Sunday afternoon

“It was a pleasure to watch Leo. We played against older guys but it didn’t matter. He was unstoppable and nobody could take the ball away from him,” says Mauro Formica, who played with Messi at Newell’s Old Boys, the team that supports Lionel.

Messi goes to Rosario twice a year. He spends Christmas in the city with his family and a few weeks when the football season ends.

Another legend about him in the city is his visit to Club de la Milanesa, a restaurant that serves his favorite quintessentially Argentinian dish: a Milanese steak. He was sometimes spotted by a few lucky fans entering and exiting the place. But he knows it’s impossible to spend much time anywhere in the city. It would be chaos.

However, he will have to fight with Kylian Mbappe to get his hands on the trophy

Many tourists visit Cafe VIP, a restaurant located near the Flag Monument, one of the most recognizable symbols of Rosario, during the holidays. The place belongs to his father Jorge.

But it’s not easy to find someone there to keep in touch with the family. Lionel is almost impossible. Nearly. One lucky fan found success weeks before the 2014 World Cup.

Messi signed a card with the picture of the trophy and wrote “prometo traerla” (I promise to take him home). A previously unfulfilled promise. Tonight’s World Cup final against France could be his last chance.

Lionel owns two private villas in town. He also owns two floors of an office building near the Parana River in the east of the city.

The house he grew up in, on State of Israel Road, a narrow street in poor southern Rosario, is still owned by the family but is always closed. Neighbors say that Matias, one of Lionel’s brothers, still lives there, but he doesn’t open the door. He was arrested twice for illegally carrying a gun.

Messi’s graffiti in the Argentine shirt can be seen everywhere. For the majority, he is the great ambassador of Rosario. But this is not a unanimous opinion. It’s not hard to find people who believe Lionel should do more for City and now, near the end of his career, fulfill the promise to return home to play for Newell’s.

“Some people have unrealistic expectations of Lionel. Maybe they think he should be their neighbor, a person who’s in town every day. He lives in another country, has a life in Europe. They expect too much,” says Lucas Scaglia, a former teammate at Newell’s and cousin of Antonella Rocuzzo, Messi’s wife.

Whether Messi wins the World Cup or not, the people of Rosario will still be proud of him

National humor has changed since Argentina won the Copa America last year. People believe in the national team and believe in Messi. By then there was a hint of suspicion. The question was always the same: why didn’t he play as well for Argentina as he did for Barcelona?

There were allegations: he doesn’t care about his country, he doesn’t sing the national anthem before games. He’s not Argentinian. He is Spanish. He left the city at 13, a child who cried his eyes out on the flight to Barcelona for fear of a new life and leaving his friends behind. But his sons are Spanish. You speak Catalan. It’s rumored that he intends to live in Barcelona after his retirement. This thought hurts the people in his hometown. For them, Messi belongs to Rosario. Not Barcelona.

“It’s been a long time but a lot of people still remember the player he was as a kid, when he was 11, 12 years old. It was ridiculous. We had a strong team at Newell’s, but when Lionel came we were unbeatable and he scored a lot of goals,” says Sergio Almiron, manager of amateur teams at the club where Messi played before moving to Barcelona.

Messi grew so much bigger than the city that some of the former teammates only speak to the press for a fee. All of them have stories about the player who once made keepie-uppies in the center circle at halftime of a game with Newell’s professional team. Right foot, left foot, head, shoulder, thighs, back heels without dropping the ball. Thousands of people in Marcelo Bielsa’s stadium started shouting:

Messi goes to Rosario twice a year. He spends Christmas with his family in the city

“Maradona! Maradona!’

“It was just amazing,” recalled Bruno Millanesio, a midfielder who played with Lionel at the club’s academy.

Those who shared dressing rooms with him do not remember him as a shy child, contrary to the popular image of him. You speak of a polite but funny child. The one who would take other guys to do keepie-uppies in front of cars to make some money to buy Coca-Cola which he loved.

“There was a game where his marker fouled Leo every time he touched the ball. So he decided to humiliate his opponent. His tracer couldn’t find him anymore. Leo would pass him without touching the ball. There was a moment when he nutmeg the poor boy twice in a row in the same piece,” says Sergio Maradona, another boy who played with him at Newell’s.

This team earned the nickname “Machine of 1987” and went unbeaten for three years. In 2000, when Messi traveled to Barcelona, ​​they won the league so easily that the league decision had to do something. If a team had a six-goal lead, the game had to be abandoned. Only one team the week after did so: Newell’s Old Boys.

Messi is a mythical figure in Rosario, also because of a promise he never made: one day to return to play professionally for Newell’s. Nobody ever heard him say that. It was mentioned once by Jorge Messi, his father. it was enough When he left Barcelona, ​​part of Rosario wanted him to come home instead of Paris.

That was not to be expected. But some will never give up and still want to see Messi in the black and red Newell’s Old Boys jersey, ideally with a world title.