Inside Lionel Messi and Antonela Roccuzzo’s Private Love Story

After the European club signed him and agreed to pay for his treatment, the rest of the Messi family—dad Jorge, mom Celia, older brothers Matias and Rodrigo, and younger sister Maria-Sol initially moved to Spain in 2001. But Celia ended up taking his siblings back to Argentina, leaving Jorge, who remains his son’s agent and closest confidante to this day, to look after the teen.

Messi eventually found his footing with La Masia, Barcelona’s youth academy, scoring 38 goals in 31 games in his debut season at the under-16 level, and the rest is history. But when he was just a kid, battling homesickness and trying to literally grow into his outsized talent, his heart remained in Rosario.

He flew back home in 2005, according to Argentina’s Parati, after Roccuzzo’s best friend had been killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.

Both 17 at the time, their friendship ended up blossoming into a full-blown romance, according to various accounts of his fateful trip home.