MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Argentina's Lionel Messi recently announced his retirement from international football. Argentina is a soccer powerhouse that has produced world-class players, players like Messi, also Diego Maradona. So what can the United States learn from its football culture? Manuel Rueda reports from Rosario, Messi's hometown, where elite coaching is within almost everyone's reach.
UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER FANS: (Singing in Spanish).
MANUEL RUEDA, BYLINE: Newell's Old Boys is one of the most popular soccer clubs in Rosario. It also runs one of the city's largest youth academies.
UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER PLAYER #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: Every week, hundreds of kids ages 4 to 12 train at its facilities in the center of town. Many dream of becoming professionals. And in Rosario, that dream doesn't seem so far-fetched. This is the city where soccer legend Lionel Messi grew up and began his career at Newell's youth academy.
DASTAN GIL: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: "It gives me a lot of joy to play. This is my passion," says 8-year-old Dastan Gil.
(CROSSTALK)
RUEDA: Dastan lives in a farming town 120 miles from Rosario. Every week, his father, Carlos Gil, drives him to practice at Newell's.
CARLOS GIL: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: "It's a big effort, both for the child and the parent," he says.
UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER PLAYER #2: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: Fortunately for Gil, training at Newell's is affordable. While in the United States, families pay 2- to $3,000 a year for elite youth soccer, Newell's charges about $25 a month, and its best young players pay nothing. Gil shakes his head when I tell him what American clubs charge.
GIL: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: "If they charged that here, only a few kids could play," he says. And here in Argentina, the best players tend to come from low-income backgrounds.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER PLAYER #3: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: Newell's can keep fees low because it has other ways of making money. The club has a professional team in Argentina's first division that earns income from ticket sales and broadcasting rights. It also makes money when its best players are transferred to other clubs in Argentina or abroad. Recently, a 21-year-old who rose through its youth categories was transferred to Boca Juniors for $4 million.
GUSTAVO TOGNARELLI: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: "Kids that we are training today are what sustains this institution," says Gustavo Tognarelli, the head of youth development at Newell's. In the United States, youth clubs don't have access to these kinds of payments. That's because teams in Major League Soccer, the country's top professional league, are not obliged to compensate youth clubs if they sign their players.
RORY O'NEILL: Really what happens is if you train a player and they go to a better situation or a bigger club, you get nothing for that.
RUEDA: Rory O'Neill coaches an under-13 team in Pennsylvania. He says youth clubs in the U.S. have very limited streams of revenue.
O'NEILL: The only option that they really have to pay for everything that they need to pay for is to get payment from parents.
UNIDENTIFIED SOCCER PLAYER #4: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: In Argentina, Newell's Old Boys is among hundreds of clubs that subsidize the training of young kids with the hopes of transferring them to bigger clubs for a fee or integrating them into their professional team. And while parents like Carlos Gil still make big sacrifices to get their kids to practice, the world's most popular sport seems to be much more affordable here than in the United States.
GIL: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: "We might not have so much money," Gil says, "but in some areas, we have better quality of life."
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).
RUEDA: For NPR News, I'm Manuel Rueda in Rosario, Argentina.
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