Messi's centennial clerk

Statistics in soccer report on goals scored, percentage of possession and kilometers traveled by each player, but not on how clubs or idols strengthen family ties. The goals of Lionel Messi were for years a form of communication between a grandfather and a grandson distanced by 9,959 kilometers, one in Buenos Aires and the other in Noia, A Coruña. In 2007, when he was 86 years old, Hernán Mastrángelo began to write down by hand, on one page after another, every so often the captain of Argentina and Barcelona to build a sentimental bridge with Julián, his grandson who adores Messi, without knowing that he was creating a personal record that he still updates and whose existence reached the footballer's ears last week. Last Wednesday, three days after his most unexpected notary turned 100,The recent Copa América champion sent him a video of thanks.

"I don't know what I did that Messi sent me a message," Don Hernán laughs at his home in Carapachay, a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and between his centennial fingers he holds the papers, joined by a clip, in which he continues to settle each goal of the idol. His last score corresponds to the definition in the penalty shootout against Colombia, in the Copa América, on Tuesday 6, a left foot that the official statesmen do not add to Messi's 748 impacts (672 with Barcelona and 76 with Argentina; the first against Albacete in the League in May 2005) but that is valid for Mastrángelo's affective blog. “Write the rival team, the date and the number of goals. Before it took five minutes and now it can take half an hour but it always does, it is his way of staying active ”, says Julián, one of his three grandchildren,by whom the habit started.

Just as Messi traveled to Barcelona in September 2000, Eduardo Mastrángelo (architect, son of Hernán and father of Julián) moved to Galicia the following year in the middle of the Argentine crisis.

His wife, Patricia, and their son, then four years old, joined in 2002 and the three lived in the Rías Baixas until their return to Argentina in 2012. In that decade in Spain, the long-distance relationship between Hernán and Julián, which He had no memories of his grandfather, it started thanks to Messi.

If football helps to build relationships between parents and children, in this case it was between grandfather and grandson.

More information

• Messi, the Argentine

• PHOTO GALLERY |

  Argentina's victory in the Copa América final

“I became a Barcelona fan because of Ronaldinho and, just at the time when I was beginning to talk to my grandfather on the phone, Messi made his debut. It was our connection, ”explains Julián, 23, still more with a Spanish accent than an Argentine one. “I'm from River but not so much a football fan, my only madness was Messi. I saw a creature that was painted on the rivals and I began to follow my pages ”, says Don Hernán, with impeccable lucidity. Julian resumed: “I called my grandfather and asked him: 'Abu, did you watch the game?' And he said to me: 'Yes, and I scored the goals ”. Accompanied by Angela, 92, his wife of seven decades, Hernán adds: “From then until now, I spent a few years with Messi. He didn't know anything about me, but I knew something about him ”.

As Argentina advanced in the Copa América, Julián published on his networks a video of his grandfather's notarial certificate that would soon have thousands of reproductions. A relative of the crack contacted Julián last Wednesday to send him a reply from the 10th: “Hello Hernán: I got your story. It seems crazy to me, not even I have scored the goals. I wanted to thank you for what you do ”. Don Hernán, who also speaks with pride of his 40 years of work in a local chocolate factory, Fénix, does not know that his case reached India, but when the first photographer entered his house, he shows a sense of humor. "Comb my curlers," he says to Angela. His treasure served to channel a long-distance connection, and he still does.

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