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Lionel Messi is a professional football player who plays for the Argentina national football team and FC Barcelona. Many professional football players consider him to be the greatest player ever to grace the football pitch. He has won the best football player award a record five times. His breakthrough season was 2008-2009 when he helped Barca win the treble, i.e. La Liga, Copa Del Rey and the Champions League. He has broken many records in football. Some of the more notable ones include maximum goals scored in La Liga, maximum goals scored in a single season and most goals scored in a single season in Europe. He has already scored over 500 career goals at the young age of 29. With still some years left for his career, he looks to add to his tally even more.
Messi was born in Rosario, Argentina on June 24, 1987. At a young age, he was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency. At the age of 13, he moved to Barcelona, Spain who agreed to pay for his treatment. It is rumored that his contract was signed on a tissue paper by the Barcelona youth academy coach. He progressed fast through the ranks at Barcelona’s youth teams before he made his first team appearance at the age of 16 years 4 months and 23 days old at a friendly against Porto.
He played more games for the second team to gain exposure and experience and finally made his competitive first team debut against Espanyol on 16th October 2004. He has established himself as an integral part of the Barcelona team in 2005-2006 season. Since then, he never had to look back. He was nominated for the prestigious Ballon D’Or award in 2006-2007 season where he finished third behind Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo. He was first runner up in the following season and he finally won the award in 2009 beating Cristiano Ronaldo.
He has won the Ballon D’Or a record five times and consecutively winning four times. That period was also the most successful period for FC Barcelona as they were regularly winning trophies after trophies. He has won the European Golden Boot awarded to the top scorer three times. He also holds the record for most number of goals in a calendar year. His arch nemesis Cristiano Ronaldo regularly provides him competition for these awards as well as off the field sponsorships and deals. He is one of the most followed sports personalities in social media like facebook, twitter and instagram. Although he has been involved in tax evasion cases, his popularity hasn’t faded. He has befriended many Barcelona players most notably, Ronaldinho, Neymar and Suarez.
Experts and pundits believe his skills to be out of this world. And his stats back up that claim too. He finds the back of the net regularly and is one of the few players in the modern world that can turn a game around on his own.
In the international stage, he hasn’t been that successful although he has played in a world cup final and 3 Copa America finals. After the most recent loss in the Copa final, he announced his international retirement only to overturn it weeks later after many fans pleaded him to stay. His major honours include Copa Del Rey, Club World Cup, La Liga, Champions League and Olympics Gold. He was also the best player in 2014 Fifa World Cup.
