Lionel Messi walked into La Masia in the autumn of 2000, a shy 13-year-old from Argentina who barely spoke to anyone. Within 24 hours, he had made Cesc Fabregas look helpless. Within a few months, he had a fractured fibula and was on a plane back to Rosario.
That's the Messi story that rarely gets told — not the Ballon d'Or speeches, but the years before anyone outside Barcelona knew his name.
Victor Vazquez, who came through the academy alongside Messi and went on to win the MLS Cup with Toronto FC in 2017, has shared what those early years actually looked like. His account is a reminder that the most naturally gifted player in football history still had to grind through things that would have finished lesser teenagers.
Day one, three one-vs-ones, zero contest
When Messi arrived on trial, Infantil B coach Rodolfo Borrell didn't ease him in. He put Fabregas — the best player in their 1987-born generation, future Arsenal and Spain star — on him in a one-vs-one drill. Messi won all three. The following day, Borrell tried Gerard Pique instead. Same result.
Vazquez's description is precise: "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."
The trial became a permanent move almost immediately. Then the problems started.
Paperwork kept him out of competitive matches for five months. When he finally debuted on March 7, 2001 — coming off the bench against Amposta and scoring — the relief lasted exactly one week. A friendly the following weekend ended with a fibula fracture in his left leg. He went back to Argentina. His teammates genuinely wondered if he'd come back.
The injections nobody talked about
What Vazquez's account makes vivid, in a way that dry medical summaries never do, is what the growth hormone treatment actually meant day to day. Messi received injections every night at home — administered by his father or a club doctor, financed by Barcelona. Some mornings he couldn't make it to school. Some training sessions he missed because of dizziness.
This was not a background inconvenience. It was a nightly medical procedure running alongside everything else: the language barrier, the homesickness, the injury recovery, the pressure of being a foreign kid at the world's most scrutinized football academy.
Vazquez puts it plainly: "What Messi had to go through was far from easy."
By the 2003-04 season, the breakthrough was total. Messi played for five different Barcelona sides in a single campaign — Juvenil B, Juvenil A, Barca C, Barca B, and the first team. No one has done it since. He made his unofficial senior debut in a friendly against Porto in November 2003 at 16.
- Promoted from Juvenil B to Juvenil A after three games
- Moved from Barca C to Barca B after five games — the club wanted him in a more technical, less physical environment
- First-team debut came in a friendly against Porto, November 2003
Vazquez's final image of Messi is from 2023 — Toronto FC losing 4-0 to Inter Miami, Vazquez walking onto the pitch in what would be one of his last starts, both men chatting before and after the game. "I could see the joy of that kid in his eyes," he writes.
He wanted to finish his career alongside Messi at Miami. His legs wouldn't allow it.
