The next Messi may be training at this youth soccer academy

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA » Benjamin Palandella dribbles around a bigger boy who comes charging at him and shoots to goal with shocking force for a 7-yearold player. Nearby, children jump to head a ball tethered on a rope, tip-toe over hoops and dribble around orange cones.

The kids training in this concrete court in a Buenos Aires working class neighborhood play for Club Social Parque. It’s the same soccer talent factory where international stars like Diego Maradona, Carlos Tevez and Juan Roman Riquelme polished their skills as children.

Spain’s “La Masia” youth academy may be the famed bedrock of Barcelona’s success and where Lionel Messi started training at 13 when he emigrated from Argentina. But Club Social Parque, a humble youth academy in Messi’s native country, has perhaps produced more world-class players than any other. At least 40 have become major international stars.

During practice, many of the children wore Messi’s Barcelona jersey and dream of becoming Argentina’s next soccer great. The coach often credited for the academy’s success oversees their drills from the sideline.

“At Club Parque, we work a lot on the fundamentals, the technique. We recognize talent from a young age and our eye has been sharpening with time,” said Ramon Maddoni, head scout at Parque and at the Boca Juniors club children’s division. “We’ve discovered more players than La Masia.”

The 75-year-old coach likes to recite the names of the dozens of kids — more than 200 by his count — that he has coached and who went on to play with Argentina’s national team, local and Europe’s top clubs.

He recalls how he promised Tevez that he’d be a world-class striker long before he became a top goal scorer for clubs in England and Italy.

Or how Juan Pablo Sorin would cry when Maddoni would line him up on defense, because he wanted to score goals. Sorin later played left back for Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain, and invited Maddoni on an all-expenses paid trip to Germany to watch him play with Argentina in the 2006 World Cup.

These days, he recites names of new young talent.

“Benjamin is different from the group,” he said about Palandella. “He can pass with his back turned, he uses both legs. I see some of Riquelme in the way he moves the ball. I see some of ‘Carlitos’ Tevez, in how he uses his hands and leans backward... He’s different.”

After the training game, Benjamin changed into a Barcelona shirt adorned with Messi’s number 10 and continued to kick the ball even after the other kids had gone home. “I want to be like Messi and play for Barcelona,” he said. He likes how the Barcelona star “steps” on the ball, scores and shoots free kicks. Like Messi, “Benjamin is very shy, but he transforms himself on the field,” his father, Gaston Pallandela said.

Former players say that the secret to Parque is Maddoni’s eye for spotting young talent. But also his insistence on practicing skill sets in reduced spaces and imperfect surfaces where kids learn how to react faster, giving them a competitive advantage when they eventually reach large professional fields.