He declared his love. It is not very clear when it was. What is known is that Lionel Messi was just a boy who dreamed of playing football someday. Moreover, the closest he had been to Barcelona had been when a friend of the neighborhood lent him the Blaugrana shirt that his father kept so fondly. That day, or rather those minutes, Leo pushed the ball that accompanied him all the time from his left. He sat at the desk in his room, took a sheet of paper and a pen and began to write: “Antonela.” (Yes, with only one).
Among so many words of love, worthy of a young preteen, sketched a clairvoyance that would mark that relationship forever: “One day we will be engaged.”
A love story difficult to reconstruct by the hermetism of its protagonists. A love story worthy of a movie.
Why has the best player in the world chosen a girl from his hometown neighbourhood, the daughter of a supermarket owner?
It all began in 1996, when Messi and Lucas Scaglia, the cousin of Antonella and Leo’s friend in the Newell’s Old Boys youth system, began to spend time together in Rosario.
Antonella would join them, as they would go to the shore of the Parana river.
Leo was just nine-years-old, but was already in love with the daughter of the Rosario supermarket chain owners.
Those who know him recall that he would write letters as a kid, stating that one day Antonella would be his girlfriend.
It was not until he had turned 21-years-old that the relationship became known.
It was on the programme ‘Hat Trick Barça’, of the Catalan channel ‘TV3’, in January 2009.
They asked him “Do you have a girlfriend?” and Leo Messi replied “Yes, I have a girlfriend. She is in Argentina. The truth is that I am well and I am relaxed.”
From that moment, Antonella Roccuzzo, who always had a close relationship with Leo, was linked to the life of Messi.
Antonella, who studied at the Latin American Education Centre, took a different path to Leo when the Barça star left to go to the Catalan capital.
While Messi started on his road to becoming the greatest player in the world, Antonella was in a relationship with another Rosario neighbour, one that lasted three years.
The death of a friend of Antonella’s in a traffic accident led to the renewed meeting of Antonella and Leo.
According to ‘Infobae’, Messi learned of the tragedy and quickly travelled to Argentina to be at her side. It was then that their relationship progressed, but they chose to keep it private.
Messi returned to Barcelona, while Antonella began to study Odontology at the National University of Rosario, leaving the course after six months and trying her luck in Social Communication, which she studied for a year.
Antonella’s friends say that she revealed her relationship with Messi to them on July 20, 2007.
Despite this, the confirmation that the relationship was established happened before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Roccuzzo travelled for the first time to Barcelona and moved in with Leo Messi.
On June 2, 2012, in a celebration after a goal against Ecuador in the Monumental stadium, an open secret was confirmed: Antonella was pregnant with Thiago, the couple’s first child, born on November 2, 2012.
Later, in the 2014/15 season, Messi confirmed on social media that Antonella was expecting their second child, Mateo, born on September 11, 2015.
It is evident that the lives of Leo Messi and Antonella Roccuzzo were destined to be one great love story.
He always knew that he loved her, and she had the sufficient patience to wait for him.