Soccer: This Rheinfelder has played against many soccer stars and now he is eyeing world champion Messi

Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic – Raul Petretta has already taken on a few of the big names in world football on the pitch. Born in Rheinfelden, he has been making his living from sports for over five years. However, there are five characters that do not leave indifferent any professional. Not in Basel, not in Berlin, not in faraway Canada. Messi.

Petrita and his Toronto teammates were in the dressing room when the Argentine world champions announced his move to Inter Miami just a few weeks ago. Cell phones rang, faces turned away. Lionel Messi will play in the North American Professional League (MLS).

“I hope he gets to play again this season. Somehow he hesitates a bit with his autograph. In September we play Miami. Dueling with one of the greatest players the sport has ever produced will be a dream come true for him.” for the 26-year-old. About a year ago, Raoul Petretta was farther away than his adopted Canada was from the German-Swiss border in southern Baden.

The left-back spent almost his entire football life at FC Basel until the summer of 2022. First, the parents made the seven-year-old a training taxi, and then he drove nearly 20 kilometers by train. A few months after the German-Italian finished his studies in Switzerland, his first professional contract was announced with the Basel team, whose young team Petretta completely passed.

A regular professional place under Urs Fischer

After one year of training with the professionals and stints mainly in the under-21 side, the local got himself a regular place in the first team – under manager Urs Fischer, who is now top of the Bundesliga with Union Berlin.

“I played in the Champions League, where I was eliminated by Manchester City in the round of 16, and we became an under-21 international for Italy,” Raul Petretta recalls the early days in his little professional paradise. “I lived with my brother and was often able to eat at my parents’ house,” says the family man, for whom things were going well in terms of sports.

“I didn’t have to move from home and was able to play internationally in a stadium that would also be among the top ten in Germany with these fans,” continues Petretta. He himself “always wanted to play at Basel as long as possible”, but when his contract expired he found himself at odds with his hometown club, for whom he played for 19 years before making the big step into a whole new world. .

Raul Petretta transferred to Kasimpasa SK in the Turkish Süper Lig. Istanbul is “one of the most beautiful cities in the world” to him, but life in the city is alien to the German-Italian and his girlfriend. I couldn’t speak the language and had a driver 24 hours a day. I even had to call him if we just wanted to have a coffee,” says Petrita. “I don’t know if I’m mature enough to take this step.”

Big Show in North American Sports

In January this year, he didn’t have to think twice when Toronto FC, who would have liked to sign the 26-year-old in the summer, were awarded the contract. “I’m happy, very happy. We think it’s great here,” Petrita says of the “sports-filled” city in the province of Ontario, represented in all major North American professional sports leagues except American football.

“We have about 30,000 spectators every home game. In January it was minus 21,000. You have to imagine that,” says Petrita. “People love the pre-game show with fireworks and national anthems. They come to the stadium to try something.”

I can’t imagine how elated fans were when they found out that the great Lionel Messi would be part of this show in the future. “This move is great for the entire league, not just for Miami,” says Petretta. “Florida is perfect for Macy’s. A lot of Latinos live there, and he has the beach on his doorstep,” adds the 26-year-old, who Toronto, on the other hand, seems to be made for.

“There are so many cultures here, and so many countries represented,” says the Italian German, who grew up in Switzerland with his Spanish girlfriend. Petretta compares the lifestyle to Zurich. Everything is just one size larger. From their 45th-floor apartment, he and his partner enjoy a stunning view of the city skyline—even if the view is currently obscured by smoke from wildfires a little.

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But on the field, Petrita usually has the point. And if he has any trouble learning English at his school, he can speak to some of his fellow players in Italian, just as he sometimes does with his parents and his brother Justin, who is a player and sporting director at SV Herten in the Hokerhein league. “There are a lot of Italians in Toronto, so the club is based a little bit on an Italian tribe,” says Raoul Petretta. Alongside him, two prominent compatriots wear the football red jersey: European champions Federico Bernadeschi and Lorenzo Insigne.

However, in the future, the biggest name will not be playing against Raoul Petreta & Co., but rather against Raoul Petreta & Co. – and they are all looking forward to it. on MESSI.