Is there a more loaded word in sport than steroids?
Its mere mention conjures up surreptitious use of banned, performance-enhancing substances. Or to be blunt about it, it conjures up cheating.
When attributed to individuals, it takes us back to sprinter Ben Johnson being stripped of his Olympic gold medal in 1984, and the feats of Lance Armstrong being viewed forever more through a prism of cynicism.
Yet extreme caution is advised when approaching this topic because two different truths can often collide, the first of which is that people tend to feel very strongly about the subject.
This can prompt anger, and anger can easily lead to rash conclusions and erroneous accusations.
The second truth is that a singular word is hopelessly incapable of covering all manner of context. A singular word rarely tells us the whole story.
The back-story of Lionel Messi is a prime example of this, a player who early into his fantastical career was revealed to have taken regular treatments of human growth hormone (HGH), a drug that can act as an anabolic steroid.
🐐❓ 563 goals in 648 games 🤯
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) October 16, 2018
1⃣4⃣ years ago today Messi made his @FCBarcelona senior debut 🙌 pic.twitter.com/HzJQyOPTyW
There’s that word again. Like a loaded gun.
In reality however, Messi’s nightly administering of the drug on joining Barcelona as a boy, was a legal measure intended to counteract a rare condition called Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD), an affliction that affects roughly one is every 10,000 people.
Aged 11, the magician-to-be stood just 4ft 7in tall and during a prolonged medical with River Plate – in effect, a series of tests undertaken across a year-long period – it was estimated that on turning professional he would only be 4ft 11.
His future as a footballer therefore was in severe jeopardy.
A sustained course of HGH was prescribed but unfortunately it was an expensive procedure and Messi’s present club Newell’s Old Boys reneged on a promise to pay for it.
River Plate meanwhile cooled on their interest in the prodigious talent, something they’ve presumably regretted ever since.
At this juncture, up stepped Barcelona, who not only flew Messi and his family to Europe – giving his dad a full-time job as a security guard to bypass FIFA regulations – but agreed to finance the treatment.
This meant that for the bulk of his adolescence, the Argentine would spend his days studying and playing soccer. In the evenings, he would inject himself with the synthetic hormone, alternating on each leg.
In 2003, aged 16, Lionel Messi made his full debut for the Bleugrana. In his stocking feet he stood 5ft 7. That’s two inches taller than Diego Maradona.
📖 Once upon a time ...
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) November 16, 2020
... a 16-year-old boy wonder made his Barça debut in a friendly.
This was #Messi, #OnThisDay in 2003 👇 pic.twitter.com/kLjdnS2E7J
When word got out about the treatment, early into Messi’s stellar career, conspiracy theories took flight, with some laying claim that Barcelona had sealed the player’s medical records, thus insinuating that HGH was taken long after the stated period.
There is precisely no evidence of this.
Beyond that idle speculation, plenty tapped their noses, believing something was amiss, and perhaps this at least is understandable.
Because what we witnessed at Camp Nou over a great many years was an other-worldly phenomenon who defied human capacity.
Here was a player who routinely made a mockery of football betting tips. Indeed, here was a player of such unchartered brilliance that he single-handedly shaped La Liga odds for a decade and more.
Is it any wonder that suspicion lingered among the naturally suspicious?
Alas, the truth is mundane and free of doubt, and it is this. That any suggestion there was anything surreptitious about Lionel Messi’s genius is simply a tall tale.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 9th January 2023
