When Enrique Dominguez walked away from coaching youth football at age 45, his reasoning was disarmingly simple. Looking back at his time guiding a pre-teen Lionel Messi at Newell's Old Boys, the veteran instructor admitted, For me, he was like a gift from God. One day someone asked me, 'What do you recognize of your teaching when you see Leo play?' Nothing, because there was nothing to teach him. He knew everything already. What Leo does on the field today he was already doing at the age of 12.
As Messi prepares for his sixth World Cup campaign with Argentina standing as current titleholders, the glittering apex of his career in Miami, Barcelona, and Paris often overshadows the hardscrabble, asphalt-and-dust reality of his upbringing in Rosario, Argentina. Long before the murals covered the walls of the La Bajada neighborhood—where Estado de Israel No. 500 stands as a quiet pilgrimage site—Messi was forged in the relentless pressure-cooker of Argentine baby football.
The Invincibility of 'La Maquina del '87'
Joined at Newell's Old Boys at age six—his birthright as a lifelong supporter whose uncles gifted him a red-and-black jersey for his first birthday—Messi quickly became the totem for a legendary youth cohort known as La Maquina del '87 (The Machine of '87). In seven-a-side baby football, a format children play until age 11, the team went completely unbeaten for three years. When they graduated to 11-a-side on larger pitches, the demolition continued.
According to former teammate Franco Falleroni, Newell's won their championship in 2000 by at least 20 points. In five or six seasons, we only lost about three times,
teammate Gonzalo Mazzia recalled. The dominance was so absolute that opponents resorted to mercy rules. Outfield beatings were so severe that rival teams sometimes instituted a 6-0 scoreline limit, stopping the match immediately once six goals had leaked past to stem the bleeding. Meanwhile, their own goalkeeper grew so bored he occasionally sat down on his backside inside the penalty box.
For Messi, however, participation alone was never enough. Childhood friend Falleroni noted that Messi's fierce ambition manifested early: He used to go crazy when he couldn't score a goal. He was a very ambitious guy. Even if he won—if the team won 7-0—but he didn't score a goal, he got angry. Or if he didn't get passed the ball, he got angry. You could see it in his face.
The Medical Crossroads and the Syringe in the Freezer
That insatiable drive met its toughest defensive opponent off the pitch. At age nine, Messi visited endocrinologist Dr. Diego Schwarzstein on January 31, 1997, after Newell's officials sent him over as their best prospect. Diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency affecting roughly one in every 20,000 people, Messi stood a little over four feet tall—15 to 20 centimeters below his target height. Though coach Quique Dominguez once remarked in a biography that Messi's caved-in chest looked scary,
Dr. Schwarzstein noted that his bodily dimensions were otherwise entirely in harmony.
To combat the deficiency, the young forward engaged in a daily routine that required immense personal discipline. Falleroni witnessed the process firsthand at his family home in Chabas during weekend visits: I have seen him, here in my parents' place, how he injected himself in his legs. It was a very thin needle... He would come to the house with his medicine, put the pack in the freezer, take it out, inject it by himself into his thigh.
Simultaneously, financial pressures weighed heavily on the household. Adrian Coria, another youth coach, recalled that Messi's father, Jorge—a factory worker whose wife Celia worked as a cleaner—frequently worried about affording petrol for the bus trips required to get young Leo to training sessions.
Rosario Realities and the Path to La Masia
While street-level folklore in Argentina often romanticizes footballing cunning—what locals call viveza criolla, an urban street-smart survival instinct epitomized historically by Diego Maradona—Messi's peers emphasize a different truth about his personality. Sergio Maradona, a fellow No. 10 or enganche in the generation behind Messi, pushed back against the widespread media narrative of debilitating shyness: The idea that he was shy, timid—this is a lie. When he is with his mates, he's great fun. He's guarded with the press or people who don't know him. With his family or his friends, he's very amusing.
Ultimately, the local economic constraints and the prohibitive cost of his growth hormone treatment in Argentina forced a pivotal migration. In 2000, at age 13, Messi crossed the Atlantic to join FC Barcelona's La Masia academy, which agreed to finance his medical care. He never played official first-team minutes for Newell's Old Boys, though he has repeatedly pledged his desire to finish his career back home in Rosario.
Today, as the global football ecosystem focuses on American stadiums for the World Cup and Messi navigates life in MLS with Inter Miami alongside Antonela Roccuzzo—his childhood sweetheart whom he met through teammate Lucas Scaglia at age seven—the echoes of La Bajada remain clearly audible. The boy who practiced free kicks against neighborhood walls and annoyed neighbors during their afternoon siestas left behind more than just painted curbs and murals; he left proof that his preternatural mastery on the pitch was fully formed long before the world ever learned his name.
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