00:00On Wednesday night, most England fans will be worried about Lionel Messi, considered the greatest player of all time.
00:06But would he be the player he is today without the efforts of an English teacher from Strood?
00:12Well, it's an incredible story, really.
00:15When he was 16, he had a letter of introduction from his father to a businessman in Argentina, so he
00:22sailed to Argentina.
00:24At that time, this was in the 1870s, when football was in its infancy, and he probably took football, he
00:36helped introduce football to many parts of Argentina.
00:40He eventually ended up in Rosario, which is about 180 miles north of Buenos Aires, and he and his German
00:50-born wife started a school there.
00:52He ended up founding a school in 1884, known as the Collegio Comercial Angelicano Argentino, or the Anglo-Argentine Commercial
01:02College,
01:03which had the emblem that would later be adapted for Newell's Old Boys, the football club established by his son
01:08Claudio.
01:09Children at the school started playing football, and when his son Claudio took over from him,
01:16his son Claudio formed this football team called Newell's Old Boys, in honour to Isaac,
01:24and they went on to become one of the most famous football teams in Argentina, as they still are today
01:31in the Premiership.
01:32The name Newell's Old Boys comes from Isaac himself, with old boys referring to the former pupils of the school,
01:39and the first players on the team were actually graduates of the Commercial College.
01:43The team went on to have an impressive roster of youth footballers, players like Mauricio Pochettino,
01:49Gabriel Batistuta, Lionel Scaloni, and Lionel Messi.
01:53They even had Diego Maradona playing for their first team.
01:56I think when Maradona played for Newell's Old Boys briefly in the 1990s,
02:02and he was asked why he wanted to play for Newell's Old Boys,
02:05he basically said because they are the history of football in Argentina.
02:11Well, tomorrow night, Messi might be the oldest player on a pitch more than 4,000 miles away,
02:16but his youth club has roots all the way back to a Stroud schoolteacher in the 1800s.
02:21Finn McDermid for Kame TV in Stroud.
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