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Lionel Messi, the famous Argentine footballer, has made a significant impact since joining Inter Miami in the Major League Soccer (MLS). As the team gears up for the 2024 MLS season, they will have to face a big challenge as Messi will miss 7 MLS games.

Football fans around the world eagerly await the annual ranking of the 100 best players in the world by popular football magazine FourFourTwo. In a surprising turn of events, two football legends, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, have failed to make it to the top five this year.

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Messi was part of the Inter Miami team that won the 2023 League Cup and the PSG team that won the 2022-23 French Super Cup. But he etched his legacy in club football during his 21-year association with Barcelona.

Born in 1987, Leo Messi is one of the greatest players in football history, winning 10 La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues with Barca, as well as six Ballons d'Or during his time at the Camp Nou. After a phenomenally successful 17 years in the Barca first team, due to the club's financial issues, Messi had no option but to leave Barcelona when his contract expired. Messi signed for French club Paris Saint-Germain in August 2021, winning the Ligue 1 title in his first season in Paris and adding another Ballon d'Or for good measure.

Asked about the impact Messi would have on this Barcelona team, who won the LaLiga title this season, Xavi told Barcelona-based newspaper SPORT: "I'm in no doubt that if Messi were to return, he would help us in what we are wanting to achieve with our football.

"Well, Barca has survived, I think we have rebuilt the team and the group very well and this league title and this Super Cup have spectacular merit and without the best player in the history of football and this club has much merit.

Messi has endorsed sportswear company Adidas since 2006. According to France Football, he was the world's highest-paid footballer for five years out of six between 2009 and 2014, and was ranked the world's highest-paid athlete by Forbes in 2019 and 2022. Messi was among Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2011, 2012 and 2023. In 2020 and 2023, he was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, with Messi being the first team-sport athlete to win the award. In 2020, Messi became the second footballer and second team-sport athlete to surpass $1 billion in career earnings.

Messi was born on 24 June 1987 in Rosario, Santa Fe,[10] the third of four children of Jorge Messi, a steel factory manager, and his wife Celia Cuccittini, who worked in a magnet manufacturing workshop. On his father's side, he is of Italian and Spanish descent, the great-grandson of immigrants from the north-central Adriatic Marche region of Italy, and on his mother's side, he has primarily Italian ancestry.[3] Growing up in a tight-knit, football-loving family, "Leo" developed a passion for the sport from an early age, playing constantly with his older brothers, Rodrigo and Matas, and his cousins, Maximiliano and Emanuel Biancucchi, both of whom became professional footballers.[11] At the age of four he joined local club Grandoli, where he was coached by his father, though his earliest influence as a player came from his maternal grandmother, Celia, who accompanied him to training and matches.[12] He was greatly affected by her death, shortly before his eleventh birthday; since then, as a devout Roman Catholic, he has celebrated his goals by looking up and pointing to the sky in tribute to his grandmother.[13][14]

As the Messi family had relatives in Catalonia, they sought to arrange a trial with Barcelona in September 2000. First team director Charly Rexach immediately wanted to sign him, but the board of directors hesitated; at the time it was highly unusual for European clubs to sign foreign players of such a young age. On 14 December, an ultimatum was issued for Barcelona to prove their commitment, and Rexach, with no other paper at hand, offered a contract on a paper napkin.[19][22] In February 2001, the family relocated to Barcelona, where they moved into an apartment near the club's stadium, Camp Nou. During his first year in Spain, Messi rarely played with the Infantiles due to a transfer conflict with Newell's; as a foreigner, he could only be fielded in friendlies and the Catalan league. Without football, he struggled to integrate into the team; already reserved by nature, he was so quiet that his teammates initially believed he was mute. At home, he suffered from homesickness after his mother moved back to Rosario with his brothers and little sister, Mara Sol, while he stayed in Barcelona with his father.[16][22][23]

Under manager Tito Vilanova, who had first coached him aged 14 at La Masia, Messi helped the club achieve its best-ever start to a La Liga season during the second half of 2012, amassing 55 points by the competition's midway point, a record in Spanish football.[137] A double scored on 9 December against Real Betis saw Messi break two longstanding records: he surpassed Csar Rodrguez's record of 190 league goals, becoming Barcelona's all-time top scorer in La Liga, and Gerd Mller's record of most goals scored in a calendar year, overtaking his 85 goals scored in 1972 for Bayern Munich and West Germany.[138] Messi sent Mller a number 10 Barcelona shirt, signed "with respect and admiration", after breaking his 40-year record.[139] At the close of the year, Messi had scored a record 91 goals in all competitions for Barcelona and Argentina.[140] Although FIFA did not acknowledge the achievement, citing verifiability issues, he received the Guinness World Records title for most goals scored in a calendar year.[141][142] As the odds-on favourite, Messi again won the FIFA Ballon d'Or, becoming the only player in history to win the Ballon d'Or four times.[140][143]

"Congratulations on your historic record, Lionel. But above all, congratulations on your beautiful career at Barcelona. Stories like ours, of loving the same club for so long, unfortunately will be increasingly rare in football. I admire you very much, Leo Messi."

Following his announcement, a campaign began in Argentina for Messi to change his mind about retiring.[455] He was greeted by fans with signs like "Don't go, Leo" when the team landed in Buenos Aires. President of Argentina Mauricio Macri urged Messi not to quit, stating, "We are lucky, it is one of life's pleasures, it is a gift from God to have the best player in the world in a footballing country like ours... Lionel Messi is the greatest thing we have in Argentina and we must take care of him."[456] Mayor of Buenos Aires Horacio Rodrguez Larreta unveiled a statue of Messi in the capital to convince him to reconsider retirement.[457] The campaign also continued in the streets and avenues of the Argentine capital, with about 50,000 supporters going to the Obelisco de Buenos Aires on 2 July, using the same slogan.[458]

As his career advanced, and his tendency to dribble diminished slightly with age, Messi began to dictate play in deeper areas of the pitch and developed into one of the best passers and playmakers in football history.[562][563][564] His work-rate off the ball and defensive responsibilities also decreased as his career progressed; by covering less ground on the pitch, and instead conserving his energy for short bursts of speed, he was able to improve his efficiency, movement, and positional play, and was also able to avoid muscular injuries, despite often playing a large number of matches throughout a particular season on a consistent basis. Indeed, while he was injury-prone in his early career, he was later able to improve his injury record by running less off the ball, and by adopting a stricter diet, training regime, and sleep schedule.[565] With the Argentina national team, Messi has similarly played anywhere along the frontline; under various managers, he has been employed on the right wing, as a false nine, as an out-and-out striker, in a supporting role alongside another forward, or in a deeper, free creative role as a classic number 10 playmaker or attacking midfielder behind the strikers.[416][566]

A prodigious talent as a teenager, Messi established himself among the world's best players before age 20.[61] Diego Maradona considered the 18-year-old Messi the best player in the world alongside Ronaldinho, while the Brazilian himself, shortly after winning the 2005 Ballon d'Or, commented, "I'm not even the best at Bara", in reference to his protg.[567][568] Four years later, after Messi had won his first Ballon d'Or by a record margin,[75] the public debate regarding his qualities as a player moved beyond his status in contemporary football to the possibility that he was one of the greatest players in history.[12][538][569] An early proponent was his then-manager Pep Guardiola, who, as early as August 2009, declared Messi to be the best player he had ever seen.[570] In the following years, this opinion gained greater acceptance among pundits, managers, former and current players,[115][571] and by the end of Bara's second treble-winning season, the view of Messi as one of the greatest footballers of all time had become the apparent view among many fans and pundits in continental Europe.[572][573] He initially received several dismissals by critics, based on the fact that he had not won an international trophy at senior level with Argentina,[574] until he won his first at the 2021 Copa Amrica.[575]

In Argentine society, prior to 2019, Messi was generally held in lesser esteem than Maradona, a consequence of not only his perceived uneven performances with the national team, but also of differences in class, personality, and background. Messi is in some ways the antithesis of his predecessor: where Maradona was an extroverted, controversial character who rose to greatness from the slums, Messi is reserved and unassuming, an unremarkable man outside of football.[382][581][582] An enduring mark against him is the fact that, through no fault of his own, he never proved himself in the Argentine Primera Divisin as an upcoming player, achieving stardom overseas from a young age,[16][382] while his lack of outward passion for the Albiceleste shirt (until 2019 he did not sing the national anthem and is disinclined to emotional displays) have in the past led to the false perception that he felt Catalan rather than truly Argentine.[415] Football journalist Tim Vickery states the view among Argentines is that Messi "was always seen as more Catalan than one of them".[583] Despite having lived in Spain since age 13, Messi rejected the option of representing Spain internationally. He has said: "Argentina is my country, my family, my way of expressing myself. I would change all my records to make the people in my country happy."[584] Moreover, several pundits and footballing figures, including Maradona, questioned Messi's leadership with Argentina at times, despite his playing ability.[585][586][587] Vickery states the perception of Messi among Argentines changed in 2019, with Messi making a conscious effort to become "more one of the group, more Argentine", with Vickery adding that following the World Cup victory in 2022 Messi would now be held in the same esteem by his compatriots as Maradona.[583] 2351a5e196