He plays on New York City concrete instead of famed European pitches — but for kids at an East Village school, Frankie Gonzalez was more important than Lionel Messi.

Born and raised in Queens, the fixture of the city soccer scene had become a beloved figure at PS 64 The Earth School, where he served as a phys-ed teacher’s aide for the last three years.

But facing budget pressures, The Earth School told Gonzalez this year that they would not be able to bring him back.

“The kids really looked up to him,” said Vincent Grady, the school’s PE teacher. “Every day, they would ask about him. ‘Where is Frankie?’ Every day.”

Gonzalez, 30, played professionally in Mexico before becoming a star in the world of “freestyle,” the art of intricate soccer ball tricks. But while Gonzalez gets paid to showcase his skills at youth clinics, halftime shows and birthdays, the freestyle world doesn’t pay Ronaldo money. Bills and rent were piling.

So Grady, a former collegiate soccer player himself, set up a GoFundMe page last month to pay Gonzalez’ salary.

He eventually found a donor who promised to pay half of the $14,000 stipend if the GoFundMe account provided the rest.

“Parents told me that their kids broke open their piggy banks to donate their allowance,” Gonzalez said. “Everyone in the neighborhood — bodega owners, cafe owners, dog walkers — I had a lot of support.”

Grady agreed. “We have a lot of low-income students, a lot of Latino kids,” he said. “Frankie was born and raised in New York. His parents were immigrants. He went through a lot of what these kids go through and they really needed him.”

The campaign reached $8,000, and Gonzalez was cleared to return. On his first day back late last month, he tried to quietly enter the school. But kids mobbed him like he had just found the net at Wembley Stadium.

“That’s something I won’t forget,” Gonzalez said. “It was madness.”