Manufacturing Tomorrow's Superstars

Lionel Messi Inspires a New Generation of World-Class Players

Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi might only be 20 years old, but he’s already one of the most heralded players of his generation. His career path has already become a model for other young players -- but how much of his skill has to do with his video games prowess?

Lionel Messi sits in a leather armchair in the dimly lit presidential suite in the Camp Nou stadium, where FC Barcelona entertains its guests of honor on match days. Coming straight from a training session, he is wearing flip flops and hasn't had time to shower.

It’s hard to believe how the shy young man with the friendly smile could be the terror of defensive lines around the world. And it’s also hard to believe that his Barça teammate Thierry Henry -- world and European champion with the French national soccer team -- actually said something which sounds like a future epitaph for the young Argentinean: "One day I’ll be able to say that I played with Messi."

Lionel Messi speaks so quietly it’s almost like he’s constantly trying to play down all the fuss that’s being made about him. The comparisons to soccer greats such as Brazil’s Pelé and his countryman Diego Maradona have always made him uncomfortable.

He’s an easy person to talk to, polite and completely free of pretensions. Only once does he raise his voice, while talking about his exceptional skill that allows him to run as quickly with the ball as without. “I already played like that when I was a little boy,” he says.

There’s a video showing him as a five-year-old on a soccer pitch in his hometown of Rosario in Argentina. Playing for Grandoli against the boys from Amanecer, he blazes past them with the ball glued to his foot, his opponents unable to do anything to stop him.

Messi’s father Jorge took his son to Spain to try out at FC Barcelona when he was only 13 years old and a mere 1.43-meters tall (4’8”). The club manager at the time needed all of “half a minute” -- or so the story goes -- to be convinced of Lionel’s talent. He even quickly drafted a contract on a paper napkin.

Ever since, Messi has been hailed as one of soccer’s greatest attractions. And his story has fed the fantasies of soccer coaches far and wide that world-class footballers can be created if only talented players start early enough.

It’s easy to see why he is so inspiring. Messi now tears through the best defenses the world over, just like he did when he was a kid slicing past Amanecer’s defenders. And since he by now also knows when to pass the ball at the right moment, Messi simultaneously embodies two supposedly incompatible types of player: the grand soloist with flashes of individual genius and the great collective player who raises the whole team's game.

“Chelsea's Nigerian John Obi Mikel and Barcelona's Argentine Lionel Messi are a new model of footballer, an advance on anything we have seen before,” wrote soccer columnist Simon Kuper in the Financial Times.

“He outshines everyone,” says Alberto Capellas, who coordinates FC Barcelona’s training program for the club’s older youth teams. He deals with some of the best players in the world long before anyone outside of experts on international youth soccer knows their names.

His training method requires coaches to stick to the proscribed program. Dutch footballing legend Johan Cruyff is one of the spiritual fathers of the project, which highlights the level of Dutch influence weaved throughout the entire concept of play.

Training is only done with the ball and each team plays the same system: four defenders, three men in the midfield, and three strikers. “Our system isn’t quite so strict, but the philosophy behind it is,” says Capellas. The coach is meant to bring out a player’s creativity. Teach them to play defensively and you’ll be sacked.

Capellas is standing on the edge of the pitch at one the new training grounds at Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, FC Barcelona’s massive sporting complex. Named after the Catalan club’s Swiss founder, the €68-million facilities stretch over 140,000 square meters (1.5 million square feet) and include a massive sports arena and locker rooms for a dozen soccer teams.

Although other types of athletes train in the arena, the priority here is clearly put on crafting soccer talents. For Spain alone, there are 25 scouts out searching for potentially great players. They keep an eye out for younger players. That's not just since Messi was discovered; it’s part of the club’s philosophy. “Real Madrid has trained 38 players that are currently playing in Europe’s top leagues, we’ve got two more,” says Capellas. There are nine alone in Barça’s own side and they’re worth several hundred million euros on the transfer market.

Messi has become the successful prototype of a global soccer player. Leaving his own country while just a kid, he came to a different continent to learn the game with other youths from all over the world. But FC Barcelona can’t be credited with bringing him to Spain: His father couldn’t find a club in Argentina willing to pay the monthly costs of $900 for a hormone treatment Lionel needed to combat a growth defect.

The Argentinean's success story, having now reached his natural height of 1.70 meters (5’7”), hasn’t only stoked interest at Barcelona for scouting globally for young talent. England’s richest clubs scout primarily in Germany and France. And Munich’s FC Bayern signed a 13-year-old from Peru last summer. However, the Spanish sports newspaper As has criticized the kid player transfers, calling them "a type of footballing pedophilia."

The official budget of Barcelona’s soccer academy is €6 million, but that sum probably does not include all costs. Since international transfers of players younger than 18 are banned, parents are now often encouraged to move with their entire families -- meaning the club frequently has to find jobs for the parents, too.