Lionel Messi
Lionel Andrés Messi was born 24
June 1987) is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for
Spanish club FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team. Often considered the
best player in the world and regarded by many as the greatest of all time,
Messi has a record-tying five Ballon d'Or awards, four of which he won
consecutively, and a record-tying four European Golden Shoes. He has spent his
entire professional career with Barcelona, where he has won 29 trophies,
including eight La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League titles, and five
Copas del Rey. Both a prolific goalscorer and a creative playmaker, Messi holds
the records for most official goals scored in La Liga (368), a La Liga season
(50), a club football season in Europe (73), a calendar year (91), El Clásico
(26), as well as those for most assists made in La Liga (146) and the Copa
América (11). He has scored over 600 senior career goals for club and country.
Born and raised in central
Argentina, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency as a child. At
age 13, he relocated to Spain to join Barcelona, who agreed to pay for his
medical treatment. After a fast progression through Barcelona's youth academy,
Messi made his competitive debut aged 17 in October 2004. Despite being
injury-prone during his early career, he established himself as an integral
player for the club within the next three years, finishing 2007 as a finalist
for both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year award, a feat he
repeated the following year. His first uninterrupted campaign came in the
2008–09 season, during which he helped Barcelona achieve the first treble in
Spanish football. At 22 years old, Messi won the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World
Player of the Year award by record voting margins.
Three successful seasons followed,
with Messi winning three consecutive FIFA Ballon d'Ors, including an
unprecedented fourth. His personal best campaign statistically to date was the
2011–12 season, in which he set the La Liga and European records for most goals
scored in a single season, while establishing himself as Barcelona's all-time
top scorer in official competitions in March 2012. The following two seasons,
Messi finished twice second for the Ballon d'Or behind Cristiano Ronaldo, his
perceived career rival. Messi regained his best form during the 2014–15
campaign, breaking the all-time goalscoring records in both La Liga and the
Champions League in November 2014,[note 4] and led Barcelona to a historic
second treble.
An Argentine international, Messi
is his country's all-time leading goalscorer. At youth level, he won the 2005
FIFA World Youth Championship, finishing the tournament with both the Golden
Ball and Golden Shoe, and an Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
His style of play as a diminutive, left-footed dribbler drew comparisons with
compatriot Diego Maradona, who declared the teenager his successor. After
making his senior debut in August 2005, Messi became the youngest Argentine to
play and score in a FIFA World Cup during the 2006 edition, and reached the
final of the 2007 Copa América, where he was named young player of the
tournament. As the squad's captain from August 2011, he led Argentina to three
consecutive finals: the 2014 World Cup, for which he won the Golden Ball, and
the 2015 and 2016 Copas América. After announcing his international retirement
in 2016, he reversed his decision and led his country to qualification for the
2018 World Cup.
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