‘Lionel Messi never had it easy. By 15, he’d broken his leg and needed daily hormone injections’ – The Athletic

Victor Vazquez is a former professional footballer from Spain, an MLS Cup champion with Toronto FC in 2017, who came through Barcelona’s academy alongside Lionel Messi. 

When I was 13, Barcelona were not used to recruiting kids from abroad. 

Then, out of the blue, a kid from Argentina arrived at La Masia.

It was the autumn of 2000 when coaching staff introduced him to us before a training session and said he would come on trial. On that first day, our manager for the Infantil B team (under-13 level), Rodolfo Borrell, tried to give him a proper test. 

Borrell called on the team’s most intelligent player. “Cesc (Fabregas), you are defending the new kid in the next training drill,” he said. 

It was an exercise to practise attacking transitions, ending with a forward taking on a defender in a one-vs-one situation. Fabregas was the on-pitch mastermind of our 1987-born generation at La Masia, one of our best players (and one who went on to star for Arsenal, Spain and Barcelona).

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But let me tell you, Fabregas was helpless. That Argentine guy tore him to pieces in each of the three one-vs-ones they had. 

This was the first ‘Wow’ moment I recall. That day, I told myself: “OK, I am playing with a kid named Lionel Messi, and I am not going to forget that name anytime soon.”

The following day, Borrell made us go through the same training drill, but this time selected our best defender. “Gerard (Pique, who would start the finals as Spain won the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012), you mark him today, and please make sure he does not have an easy job. Do whatever you need to,” he said. 

It was more of the same — the way Messi drove the ball forward, glued to his feet, and managed to produce that final flick as the defender tried to tackle him. It is standard practice for him now, but that was also true at 13. 

Messi playing for the Barcelona first team alongside Fabregas (far left) and Pique (second right) (Josep Lago/AFP via Getty Images)

Messi was transformed on a football pitch. Off it, he was incredibly shy. He barely socialised when he arrived, changed in a corner of the dressing room and did not waste words.

That week on trial turned into a permanent move very quickly, but he had a rocky start to life in Barcelona. For five months, he was not allowed to play competitive games due to paperwork issues, so he could only train with us or appear in friendlies. On March 7, 2001, Messi finally made his debut in a league match against Catalan side Amposta. He came off the bench and scored. 

The following week, he played a friendly with the age group above us at Barca, but there was an unfortunate plot twist. After a clash with an opponent, Messi broke his leg; a fibula fracture in his left leg. 

It was a huge blow for him. We did not see him in Barcelona for a while after that — he went back to Argentina for some time. The club told us he would miss the remainder of the season and that they preferred Messi to go back home. We wondered if he’d even return, and what the effects of such an injury at a young age might be.

An outsider might argue he was in the best football academy in the world, playing for a club who facilitated a home for his family and gave him a great education. But you can’t even imagine what it is like for a 13-year-old kid, with an introverted character, to leave his home behind with his dad and go to the other side of the world searching for a dream. 

He did not know anyone. When he arrived, he was not allowed to play football because of those bureaucratic problems. When those were solved, he broke his leg. When he came back from Argentina, he had to fight to adapt to a new culture, make new friends and find ways to be happy.

I have been a footballer for more than a decade, played abroad for many years, and now I am a father of a 12-year-old. Let me tell you: this is not easy. At all. 

Messi never had it easy.

He returned for the final few months of his recovery process, and was back on the pitch the following season, 2001-02.

At the beginning of the campaign with the Infantil A team (under-14), he was not starting every game. We were one of the best La Masia generations ever — Fabregas and Pique can vouch for that — but, at that age, we felt unstoppable. 

I ended up as under-13s top scorer with more than 60 goals. The other forward, Marc Pedraza, scored about 50. We beat city rivals Espanyol in the league, despite their team being a year older than ours — something that barely ever happened. 

After the injury, Messi needed a bit of time to find his way into the side.

That season is also when I started to become more aware of the hormone treatment he was going through. He was still that tiny, silky attacker when he returned, while the others and I were growing at a different pace.

Messi had been following a medical plan, financed by Barca, in which he was given injections with hormones to stimulate growth from a very young age. I think he started even before I got to fully know him. I never saw him take the injections — it happened every night at his home, usually administered by his dad or a club doctor. 

Messi missed some training sessions because he felt dizzy after the injections. Some mornings, he could not come to school either, as he felt unwell. It was all part of a tough process, and some people might not even be aware of that. But what Messi had to go through was far from easy. 

He and I clicked thanks to school trips. We were the same age, went to the same class and took the same Barca bus to go to the city’s Lleo XIII academy, which all the residents of La Masia still attend. Alongside another team-mate, Rafa Blazquez, we were a bit of a rebel trio. 

The old La Masia building at Barcelona (Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

I lived in the old La Masia building, like a lot of Barca academy players, but Messi and his family stayed in an apartment in the city. It was located on Gran Via de Carles III, which was walking distance from our facilities and the Camp Nou.

Apart from football, we started bonding over our Discmans — remember those? We sat next to each other on the school bus and listened to our favourite music. Messi had his Argentinian tunes on all day; he liked cumbia (a kind of music from Latin America). I showed him the most famous Spanish bands at the time. We exchanged CDs and had a laugh.

We were not great in the classroom, I won’t lie. We just wanted to focus on football. The club stressed how important it was for us to pass all our exams — but the best moment of the day was when school finished and we jumped onto the bus, straight back to La Masia. 

Messi stayed with us and had lunch at the club’s facilities, with all the Barca players of different ages. Then, we had a few hours to spare before training at 5.30pm every day. 

How Messi prepared for the World Cup

Christopher Hamill, Alexander Barker

At the start, Messi preferred to walk back to his apartment and rest a bit but, as time went by, he often chose to stay with us all afternoon. He would come to our bedroom and take a nap there before training — or we would start a kickabout next to La Masia with players from the various age groups.

Those three years we spent together at La Masia are certainly some of the best of my life. It was like a 24-hour school trip every day, every week. With my best mates. 

The 2003-2004 campaign was when he took the club by storm. He had left his injury behind and ended the previous season like a rocket. That June, Messi turned 16. Barca decided to promote him to the Juvenil B team, the under-18s. His manager there was Guillermo Hoyos — who is today his coach at Inter Miami.

Messi was so unstoppable that, after three games, they brought him up to the Juvenil A, the under-19s. The same thing happened there. A few weeks later, he had been promoted to senior football.

At the time, the club had two reserve teams: Barca C, playing in the Spanish fourth tier, and Barca B in the third tier.

Messi was sent to Barca C first, and scored goals easily. But Barcelona became worried as local teams filled with veteran players were going after him week in, week out and dishing out particularly harsh treatment. After five games, they promoted him to Barca B, because the football was more technical and less physical a division above. 

In November 2003, he made his unofficial first-team debut in a friendly against Porto. Messi played with five different Barca sides in a season — something nobody has ever done since. 

Given how effortlessly he went up the ranks, I remember speaking with team-mates from our age group at the time and agreeing that, as soon as he made it to the first team, he would have no problems in reaching those levels. 

Barca just needed to help him with minor tweaks. For instance, Messi suffered a lot of muscular injuries in his first full season with the first team. The medical and nutritional departments made him follow a strict diet, forbidding him from having fizzy drinks — which he loved — among other things. 

Messi celebrates one of his first goals for Barcelona at senior level in 2006 (Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)

Now, my son often asks me about those days, about how good Messi was and how he behaved. 

Something I will never forget, and which speaks volumes about his values, is that, no matter how many levels he was playing above us, he never lost touch with our generation. 

Messi would come to watch us at every home match he could, from being 15 right up until he became a Barca star and I was playing my first games for the B team. We usually spotted him sitting in the stands, or even standing next to the corner flag — and always cheering for us. 

He would also join us after games sometimes, and we kept the same plans we had as kids: going for a walk at the L’illa Diagonal shopping centre in Barcelona, or going bowling at Pedralbes, a district close to the Camp Nou. 

I managed to break into the first team when Pep Guardiola was in charge. Messi was already the best player in the world. I was part of the squad that won the Champions League in 2011. But eventually I had to leave and build my own career abroad. I don’t regret any of it — I’ve had the best experiences of my life thanks to football. 

I retired last year, but I still have a moment from 2023 in the back of my head. It was in the final year of my contract at Major League Soccer side Toronto FC, a club I loved and where I became an MLS champion in 2017. 

Victor Vazquez in action for Toronto (Jeff Chevrier/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

One of the last games I started was against Messi’s Inter Miami — we lost 4-0. I had goosebumps as I walked onto the pitch alongside my childhood friend. We chatted before and after the match, and I could see the joy of that kid in his eyes. He must have seen the same with me. 

I would have done anything to stay a bit longer in MLS and join Miami, ending my career alongside that boy I started dreaming with. I did not hesitate to tell my agent that! But my legs were pretty much gone by then. It was too late. 

I wasn’t able to play with Messi again, but the dreams we had together as kids had already come true.