In nightclub, Lionel Messi shines. On the track of the Wall, the unmissable nightclub in Muret, twenty kilometers south of Toulouse, the music stops when the DJ screams his name. “Yes, the Cameroonian star is here with us tonight! “ Stupor and circumspection. As usual, no one understands. The spot turns on itself, pierces the darkness, then illuminates a face. The crowd stares at him. Embarrassed, Lionel Messi smiles shyly and welcomes this fleeting and improbable moment of fame with restraint.
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At 26, the Toulouse Rodeo player (Regional 1, Sixth Division) ended up getting used to his status as a local figure linked to a not trivial disambiguation. But truthful. And rather widespread in central Cameroon. He inherited this necessarily cumbersome surname from the maternal grandfather. “I tried to play it with the girls, but I was taken for someone pretentious, it really doesn’t work”, admits the one everyone – except his mother – calls Leo.
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“You’re lying … it’s not possible”
Responses to the media are also becoming scarce. It will have taken us time and perseverance to find the person concerned. “Now I only laugh with my friends. When I make a good pass in training, I call out to a teammate: “Did you see what I just did? I’m not like you, I’m leaving the Masia (Editor’s note: the FC Barcelona training center).” »
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To believe that he does it on purpose, because the Cameroonian was trained in Catalonia, from 2006 to 2007, at the Marcet Foundation, an academy established at the foot of Camp Nou. Followed by Espanyol Barcelona, the Cameroonian finally joined his mother in Toulouse when another Messi exploded in the Barça jersey. “In college, people came to see me at recess: ‘Your name is really Lionel Messi? You’re lying … It’s not possible, you’ve changed your name!’ I had to prove it to them by showing them my identity card. “ One glance is enough: it is well written Lionel Messi Nyamsi.
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Bored, Messi sometimes took bets. “I gave them their change afterwards, all the same. Today, I stopped all that, but not my friends who, them, continue. We arrive somewhere, they say to people: “Do you know that my friend is Lionel Messi? We bet 20 euros?” I still take out my ID and my friends win a ticket. “
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The profiteering buddies don’t stop there. “A friend, who had not changed his registration card, was arrested by the police who took the opportunity to check our identities. The officers were so surprised when they saw mine that they laughed with us and let us go without fining us at all. “
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Very early on, the player had to deal with this astonishment. At 17, after passing tests in Angers, he learned of his transfer to SCO by going to high school. ” On the bus in Toulouse, people were reading La Dépêche du Midi. They looked at me strangely. I realized that my face was on the front page, with the headline: “Lionel Messi signs at SCO.” “ The Angevin club even relayed the news on Facebook. Immediately, the mocking comments multiplied. Pressure was born.
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“I have done catering, cleaning …”
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Soon, the ancillary grounds will be crowded for U19 matches. The curious want to know if Messi plays like Messi. The answer is obvious. One measures 1.85 m and plays a central defender, the other 1.69 m and creates the game. “The genius of Barcelona speaks another football” as its namesake recognizes.
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Approached by the Indomitable Lions
Despite criticism, the defender wins in the youth of Maine-et-Loire. At the end of 2012, his career could even have accelerated. “Cameroonian coach Jean-Paul Akono approached me, launches Messi. He sent a delegation to the SCO. Unfortunately, the club officials told him that I was not yet ready for the professional world. It went to the clash with Angers, and it ended. “
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Without a club, the buzz has subsided, and he with it. A pair of agents offered him trials in Italy. There will be Lecce (then in Serie D), seduced but too badly financially. Then especially Brescia (Serie B), where he spent six months training with the professional group, before being fooled by his representatives. It was at Colomiers that he will experience his peak, with five National matches during the 2014-2015 season. Without imposing itself. He will then discover Auch (R1), Muret (R1), Fonsorbes (R2), Portet-sur-Garonne (R1), until he lands in District with Ramonville (D2).
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Small thumbs sometimes envious to revive interest around his name. “In Muret, the president signed me a small check because I gave visibility to the club, synthesizes Lionel Messi. Similar to Portet. “ Not enough to make a living from football. “I did catering, cleaning … to tell you how complicated it was. “ Today, at Toulouse Rodéo, he earns 400 euros per month, and supplements his salary as an order picker, from 5:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. A restful anonymity for the one, little resentful, who has a certain Lionel Messi for favorite player.
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