The Argentine city of Rosario has provided many stars in football, and has been considered the mine for graduating the most prominent stars in the country of Tango over the years, and its two most prominent ambassadors in the Qatar World Cup will be Lionel Messi and Angel Di Maria (injured).
Rosario, located in northern Argentina and the third largest city after Buenos Aires and Cordoba, has been graduating the brightest stars of Argentine football and the list is long, from Gabriel Batistuta and Javier Mascherano to Giovanni Lo Celso.
Rosario is a star graduate mine
And it's not just players;
Rather, he goes beyond to the most prominent coaches, starting with Cesar Luis Menotti, the architect of Argentina’s victory in the first World Cup in its history when it hosted the tournament on its soil in 1978, through Marcelo Bielsa, Gerardo Martino (Mexico coach in the World Cup in Qatar), and Mauricio Pochettino, to the current coach of the national team, Lionel Scaloni and his hometown. Bujato, which is 35 km from Rosario.
A 226-foot-tall mural of Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi has been painted on a building in his hometown of Rosario pic.twitter.com/aoDfKDjkVY
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 14, 2021
Sports journalist Nicholas Galieri devoted a book in 2019 to this phenomenon, entitled "Rosario, the cradle of shining stars", in which he spoke of at least 50 players Rosario gave birth to and discussed the reasons for their brilliance.
"Gerardo Martino noted that in this fertile region, children are born with a strong physique. This is an important point. There is also a tradition of great coaches contributing to this as well. There are other factors such as physical development through diet," Gallieri told AFP. In this region, it is like eating the meat of animals raised in their farms, despite the suffering of many of them in poverty.”
"In this region there is good nutrition as well as good families that take good care of their children, and they are two essential factors for the development of any young person," says Jorge Griva, an international player for the Argentina national team in the 1950s and 1960s who came from Rosario before becoming a youth coach in this city.
The 87-year-old Griffa supervised the local team in the 1970s and succeeded in discovering Bielsa, Batistuta and Valdano, and recounts that he was removing the calf from his cattle and feeding the meat to the Newell's Old Boys club.
In 1995, Lionel Messi became a champion with Central Córdoba of Rosario.
He was 8 years old.
It's the team that Boca Juniors will face in the Copa Argentina.
Newell's Old Boys were not part of that tournament and he decided to play with them.
This via @VarskySports.
pic.twitter.com/v7araVDkAD
— Roy Nemer (@RoyNemer) March 2, 2022
What also contributed to the graduation of these stars is the great hostility between the two city clubs, Newells and Rosario Central, as they each have a stadium that can accommodate 40,000 spectators and is only 5 kilometers apart.
On the day of the derby (the first was in 1905), the city is completely empty.
In the city center, a giant mural of Messi (70 meters) appears, laid in 2021.
Drug and football center
Rosario is considered a center for drug abuse and is the most dangerous city in Argentina, but its stadiums "were the basis for many talents, as young people began their correct football formation," according to Galieri.
The most prominent example of this is the Italian Juventus winger Angel Di Maria, who, before his 17th birthday, when making his official debut in the ranks of Rosario Central, was touring with his thin legs the stadiums of Club Atlético El Toretto in the north of the city, where a picture of the player receives the visitor.
On the other hand, Messi lived a quieter career with Newell's Old Boys at the age of seven until he signed his first official contract with Barcelona at the age of 13, and after 20 years, his mere presence in this city is still a dream for many.
"Lots of children come because he (Messi) played here, and he is still a fan of the club," Joaquin Batista, the young coach for the category between 6 to 12 years, told AFP.
He added: "We are trying to help these children not to think that they are Messi, not in order to destroy their dream, but to continue the desire to develop themselves."
Batista continues: "Rosario is proud of what it has done for Argentine football. The Argentina national team will include two great representatives from this city (Messi from Newell's and Di Maria from Rosario), one from each club."
Batista dreams of "seeing the famous Monument Avenue in the city filled with white and blue (the colors of the two rival clubs in the city) united with the joy of winning the World Cup thanks to players from Rosario."