Sometimes history is built on things that are just to be used and thrown away.

June came to the United States from India on an international student permit. She lives in Jersey City. A friend of hers, and compatriot of hers, asked her for a favor. He is at university in Albany, the capital of the state of New York, more than 230 kilometers away, and it was impossible for him to make the trip to Manhattan on school days. He begged him to go to the headquarters of Bonhams, the auction house located on Madison Avenue (for reference, just behind the skyscraper of a former president of this country) and take a photograph of the so-called “the most famous napkin in the world.” that cemented the legend of Lionel Messi. This week the iconic document is on display ahead of her auction, scheduled for March 18-27. The starting price is between 350,000 and 580,000 euros.

We must go back to December 2000 when that Argentine teenager with very good manners for soccer, although too weak and small, was thirteen years old. That piece of paper, the typical bar napkin now framed as a cult piece, contains eight handwritten lines in blue ink, at the bottom of which three signatures appear. There are the signatures of Carles Rexach, who was technical secretary of Barça, of Josep Maria Minguella and of the intermediary Horacio Gaggioli, who represented that possible future value and which, at that time, was nothing more than a true act of faith. At the lunch at the Pompeia Tennis Club, which Minguella presided over, Gaggioli (in whose name the object has been offered), confessed that the Messis were nervous. So Rexach picked up the pen and wrote.

“My friend is a big fan of Messi and Barcelona, ??so I came in his place,” explains June. “This is impressive. It is truly a dream come true”, she comments on this object, already of mythological character (according to the auction house), which represents the beginning of the idyll in Barcelona and the beginning of the forging of a legend.

This young Indian woman is part of the group that Ian Ehling, director of Books and Manuscripts at Bonhams in New York, defines as “the pilgrims.” Apart from “pockets with a lot of money” who are interested in the acquisition (as always, absolute discretion with identities), there are people who cannot participate in the bidding, but who come on a pilgrimage because they do not see a napkin, they see it as if it were a religious object or something as magnificent and exciting as the origin of an impressive football career,” highlights Ehling. He also emphasizes that these five days of exhibition have aroused a lot of interest. “Messi is a very familiar name,” he maintains, although he recognizes that landing him at Inter Miami generates even more popularity.

The assembly facilitates the procession. The glass façade allows passers-by to capture the attraction from the street. There are those who are busy with their things or talking on their cell phone and don’t realize it. But those who keep an eye, hardly stop to observe what that is. There are those who believe it, the disbelievers who do not believe it – “is it the same one who plays in Miami?” – and those who are surprised by the discovery. “I have known other cases of napkins, but none like this,” says Christopher, a German living in this city. He knows football and cites Messi and Maradona as “phenomenal.”

In this fairy tale narrative, Ehling praises the role that Rexach and Minguella played in making the bet.

“You need to have the talent and, on the other hand, there have to be people who recognize it,” he says. “We know that there were doubts at Barcelona and that some did not want to sign that teenager,” he remarks.

Another fascinating issue, he insists, is “the spontaneous energy” that was channeled into that napkin, a historic moment because today, with internet or telephone messages, that initiative remains as something from another era, like shaking hands.

“This is an object of exceptional consequence, and we are confident that the right people will compete for this souvenir,” says Ehling.

Although she has gone on assignment, June does not miss the opportunity to take a portrait of herself with her finger pointing at the frame. “He is very inspiring,” she says, “something that happens once in a lifetime.”