Rosario is a great cradle of football genius like Messi and Lo Celso

Tottenham's exciting new option Giovani Lo Celso is just the latest talent to emerge from Rosario. 

Giovani Lo Celso is from Rosario and that matters. It matters because it matters to him. He is 23, with so much left to achieve in European football, his Premier League adventure with Tottenham Hotspur barely under way, but one day he insists he will return home to the city that made him. The city that has made so many great Argentine football figures.

There is Lionel Messi, of course. Perhaps the greatest of them all. He wasn't Lo Celso's hero, however. He wore the wrong shirt. Newell's Old Boys, not Rosario Central. A leproso not a canalla, a leper rather than a scoundrel, the nicknames having been established when the former club stepped in to play a game for a leprosy charity after the latter pulled out.

Instead, Lo Celso's favourite was Angel Di Maria, a fellow canalla and yet another left-footer. Rosario, the birthplace of Che Guevara, does like a lefty.

It has produced many of the game's great thinkers too. Marcelo Bielsa was born in the city. It was there that he influenced Mauricio Pochettino.

"This area has something special," Pochettino tells Sky Sports. "I don't know if it is in water or if it is the steak or the milk but it is amazing."

Lionel Messi is a Newell's man. But more than that, he is a product of his environment. He is a product of Rosario. Jorge Valdano, the 1986 World Cup winner, devoted his El Pais column to this theory in April.

"Growth has to take place in an environment that appreciates that specific talent," he argued, "an environment in which football must have a cultural density. We have to say that Messi was born in Rosario because Rosario deserved a Messi. The whole city is impregnated with football. It was within the realm of possibilities for the city to give birth to a genius."

Lo Celso's emergence confirms the stories that Rosario likes to tell itself. The home of genius. The home of the genius. When Messi and Lo Celso were finally put in the same Argentina team for a friendly against Nicaragua in the summer, there was joy as the two combined effortlessly. Messi looked for Lo Celso. Lo Celso looked for Messi.

The hope is that there is a bond in terms of how they see, feel and understand the game. Perhaps there is. While the city's great coaches shared ideas, its great players have shared an upbringing on the potreros - the dusty, sun-baked pitches where their skills were honed.