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and the Messis had to delay their return to Argentina – the first team director should not have been involved in such decisions, but no one, it seemed, was prepared to take responsibility for the possible failure (or even, in the best case scenario, the success) of signing up a 13-year-old Argentinian boy.
    How on earth do you explain the doubts?
    To begin with, the involvement of such club heavyweights (Rexach, in spirit at least, Minguella, Anton Parera, Rifé) in the potential transfer of a child footballer was proof that this was something special, something unusual. Leo was protected from above and, with so many important names on the case, something was definitely going on. Or at least that’s how it was seen by those looking on from the sidelines. The matter became the talk of the town during those weeks and created great expectations. Rodolfo Borrell’s colleagues spent whatever time they could taking a look at him. The debate was not so much about his talent but how to harness his individuality to the club’s own established and collective game plan.
    But this heavyweight interest was not the oddest thing.
    In 2000, the very idea of bringing over a youngster from Argentina seemed like lunacy. It simply wasn’t done.
    Leo’s talents were obvious for all to see. An anonymous source at the club who saw him during those two weeks described Leo as las ostia en patinete , which literally means ‘the dog’s bollocks’ (but translates more or less as ‘something that moves like lightning’): ‘he did then’ – that source continues – ‘the same as he does now, but in miniature’. It would be an injustice to history to suggest that the reason they might not have wanted him was because he was too small. There was something else.
    These days it is considered quite normal to bring a youngster of whatever age to a club from anywhere in the world, and the battles to sign children as young as eight years old are well documented. But in 2000 they were breaking new ground. Five years earlier, thesigning of an Infantile (12−13 years old) from Mataró, Granollers, Santpedor (towns less than an hour from Barcelona) was considered to be bringing them a long way. The Cadetes (14−15 years old) came from all over Spain.
    And now they were talking about taking on a young Argentinian lad who had arrived, aged just 13 … hold on a minute!
    Many studies have been carried out on the subject, and at that time the general idea was that, no matter how good a player might be at that age, no one could guarantee that he would make it into the first team. Or even end up as a professional footballer. ‘To take him away from his family, his country, his friends, all of that, to put him in a situation where there are no guarantees. Of course, now he has become the best player in the world and it has become a wonderful story but …’ so says another witness to that most unusual of arrivals. It would not be the youth football coaches who would decide his future, but they talked among themselves about the possible dangers of the situation; the club had been reticent even about signing players from distant parts of Spain, taking them from their home environment, their school. The normal thing, the logical thing – it was said – was that Leo should be treated the same. Oriol Tort, one of the most renowned scouts, the leader and ideologist of the Barcelona academy, has always claimed that the preferred age for a player to join La Masía is 15 or 16. That’s how things were in 2000.
    So was it, as legend has it, lack of awareness among the coaches, or a sensible reluctance on their part because they knew the effect that uprooting the boy would have on his family?
    For example: Andrés Iniesta. As a youngster (12 years old, 1996) he took part in the National Tournament of Brunete with teams from the Spanish first division, La Liga. As always happens in tournaments of importance, the clubs sent various scouts. The best players on this