Lionel Messi, after 17 long years, exited his boyhood club FC Barcelona. With the club, he won 35 major titles and set numerous individual records. Born on June 24, 1987, at Rosario, Argentina, Messi was awarded the FIFA world player of the year six times – 2009 to 2012, 2010 and 2015.
The diminutive magician started playing as a young boy and joined Newell’s Old Boys which is a Rosario-based top-division football club. His out-of-the-world skills got the attention of football clubs situated on both sides of the Atlantic.
Aged 13, Messi and his family moved to Barcelona and began playing for the U-14 team of FC Barcelona. For the junior team, he scored 21 goals in 14 games, pushing him up the ranks quickly. He made his informal debut with FC Barcelona in a friendly match when he was 16.
During the 2004-05 season, 17-year-old Messi became the youngest official player and goal scorer in La Liga. The left-footed magician was quick on his feet, precise in his passes and had otherworldly control of the ball. With all this, he could cut open the opposition’s defence like a hot knife on a cube of butter.
In 2005, he was given Spanish citizenship. It received mixed reactions. However, the reactions got buried six feet deep after he and Barcelona won the Champions League the following year.
Messi only continued to rise and ended a splendid 2008-09 season by guiding FC Barcelona to clinch the club’s first “treble” -La Liga championship, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League title.
During that season he found the back of the net 28 times in 51 matches. Owing to his performance, he was awarded the FIFA World Player of the Year. The following season saw him score 34 goals as he took home the Golden Shoe award as Europe’s leading scorer. He was won the FIFA Ballon d’Or in 2010.
In the following season, he helped Barcelona to both La Liga and Champions League titles. This earned him an unprecedented third consecutive world player of the year award.
Only growing in stature, he became the club’s all-time scorer in 2012 when he scored his 233rd goal for Barcelona. He ended the 2011-12 season with 73 goals in all competitions, going past Gerd Müller’s 39-year-old record for single-season goals in a major European football league.
This historic 2012 season saw the Argentinian became the first player to win the honour of world player of the year four times.
In 2014, he broke Barcelona’s goal record when he scored his 370th goal. That same year witnessed him breaking career scoring records for play in both the Champions League (with 72 goals) and La Liga (with 253 goals).
He won his fifth world player of the year after he led Barcelona to another trebel in the 2014-15 season. Seasons after season, he kept on scoring, breaking records at will and growing in stature. In December 2019, he won his sixth career Ballon d’Or.
He also led his national team to certain victories over the years. At the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, he helped his team get its hand on the elusive gold medal. He also helped Argentina reach the 2010 World Cup quarterfinals. At the 2014 World Cup, Messi single-handedly lifted his team and made it to the final for the first time in 24 years. During the 2016 Copa América, he netted his 55th international goal to break Gabriel Batistuta’s Argentine scoring record.
At the 2018 World Cup, he helped an overmatched Argentine side reach the knockout stage.
However, in July 2021, Lionel Messi ended a grueling wait for a first international trophy with Argentina when ‘La Albiceleste’ defeated Brazil in the Copa America final to be crowned South American champions for the first time since 1993.
In honours in numbers:
-10 La Liga trophies
-4 Champions League trophies
-7 Copa del Rey trophies
-3 Club World Cups
-3 European Super Cups
-8 Spanish Super Cups titles
-1 Copa America
-1 U-20 World Cup
-1 Olympic Games gold medals
