For anyone who has followed football in any small way since the turn of the century, one of the figures that stands tall, if not above everyone else, is Lionel Messi. Whether one is a fan of Barcelona or Argentina, or any other side in the game, each mind has their collection of impossible plays that Messi has conducted, almost every day in his career, with great élan.
His actions are things normal humans can’t even think of, forget executing them with regularity. Messi is also the kind for whom supernatural adjectives aren’t a stretch and one is often left wondering if there’s anything the man can’t do on a football field?
Messi made his Barcelona debut in 2004 against Espanyol at the age of 17, and as many years later continues to thrill, delight and produce breath-taking moments at the drop of a hat.
However, at 34, Messi’s chances to tick off the checkbox for the biggest prize of all, the World Cup, are reducing. But what’s in a medal for a man who treats the impossible as par for course.
Grandmother’s Love!
Messi was introduced to the sport by his grandmother Celia and father Jorge around the age of 4, with the former, who passed when he was 11, accompanying him to his first ever game where it was eagerness that won over a reluctant coach.
"Put him on and you'll see how well the little boy plays," Messi's grandmother is said to have told the coach, who replied: "OK, but I'm putting him near the touchline so that when he cries you can take him off yourself."
The footage from then shows Messi, a tiny kid in the middle of much taller, stronger children, taking the ball and dribbling past them on his way to scoring a goal – the template was set!
"I am doing this because I dedicate my goals to my grandmother. She took to me to football but now she can't see how far I have come. Nevertheless, she continues to help me and my family," Messi said in 2015 about his manner of celebrating goals.
With his family backing him to the hilt, Messi began his career at Newell's Old Boys when he was 6 years old. During his stint of 6 years, he scored almost 500 goals and hopes to finish his career there as well.
Moving to Spain
The young boy was supposed to wear the Newell’s shirt for quite a while but at 9 he stopped growing when he was diagnosed with a hormone deficiency that stunted his physical development. Newell’s promised to take care of Messi, but they reneged on their offer and even the iconic River Plate couldn’t step up.
Faced with a hurdle, the middle-class family from Rosario decided the time was right to travel halfway across the globe to Barcelona.
One wonders, if the pressures of the economic collapse in the country, had forced the family into another decision, where and how would Messi have been unearthed?
A shy Messi would leave behind his two brothers, a sister, and mother as he and his father began with what would become a very famous and storied journey.
And as the cliché goes – the rest is history as Messi and miracles became a trend for the next 17 years.
After a famous deal was made on a serviette in 2000, Messi’s home would become the famous La Masia for the next couple of years at he battled homesickness. In 2002 when he officially signed on with the football federation in Spain and with Barcelona, the critics wondered whether the commitment was worth it – for a 13-year-old with no guarantees.
World, Meet Barcelona’s Leo Messi!
After destroying the array of stars in training, Messi made his first appearance at the senior level 16 October, against Espanyol, coming on in the 82nd minute. He scored his first senior goal on 1 May 2005, against Albacete, from an assist by Ronaldinho, becoming the then youngest-ever scorer for the club.
Since then, the Argentine wizard has gone on to dazzle one and all regularly, but it’s not just that, so influential has he been in Barcelona, the club’s history before him could very easily be categorised as pre-Messi.
Before Messi, Barcelona had won one European Cup, 1992, and since have been four-time winners in 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2015. In Spain, Messi has been the forefront of everything good at the Nou Camp since his arrival.
Every season Messi set the bar higher for himself, with iconic performances and celebrations as he took Barcelona to the very top in 2009, winning every competition they played in, bagging 6 trophies.
Even as this risks sounding like a broken record, Messi has left opposition players embarrassed by the half-dozen and rewritten almost every record during his years at Barcelona. To the extent, that almost every goal he scores in the twilight of his career is a record that is unlikely to broken for few decades, at least.
He’s scored every kind of goal possible and some more, and is likely to continue in the same vein, just as he had started out in his neighbourhood club.
“Don’t write about him, don’t try to describe him, just watch him,” Pep Guardiola would say about Messi after managing him at Barcelona.
After 672 goals from 778 games with 35 titles and 78 individual awards to his name, Messi sits at the top of every list for La Blaugrana and it is here too that he met his toughest rival. The next highest goalscorer for the club is César Rodríguez scored 232 goals for the club between 1942 and 1955.
While all of that points to things being rosy, recent years have seen the maestro publicly express his displeasure with the club’s management and also ask to leave.
Thankfully, the memorable journey coming to an end yet.
Messi vs Ronaldo
Two generational talents, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been doing the unthinkable on a regular basis even before they were hit adulthood. While Ronaldo has scored a few goals more than Messi, two more, up until before the start of the Euros and Copa America.
The duo has dominated awards ceremonies and broken a multitude of goalscoring records for both club and country, the very basis for the rivalry than actual loathing.
They dominated Player of the Year awards from 2008, for the decade – with Messi winning six Ballon D’Or titles as opposed to Ronaldo’s 5.
In 2015, Ronaldo said, "I think we push each other sometimes in the competition, this is why the competition is so high."
Messi too has denied any rivalry and blames the media for creating it: "Only the media, the press, who wants us to be at loggerheads but I've never fought with Cristiano".
In 2019 at an interview where both were together, Ronaldo said he would like to "have dinner together in the future". to which Messi later replied "If I get an invitation, why not?"
However, while Ronaldo and Messi have matched each other goal for goal at the club level, the Portugal captain can boast of having won one major tournament in 2016.
Don't Cry For Me, Argentina
As much as the whole world has enjoyed watching Messi do miraculous things on a football field, most of it has come in the Barcelona colours. For Argentina though, Messi’s fortunes haven’t been as bright as the white and light blue or the Sun in their flag.
Messi won the Olympic Gold in Beijing and was a winner in the U-20 World Cup with Argentina before the collective decline of the Albiceleste took its toll on him.
Failure to win the finals of the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and then the Copa America in 2016 will remain as the blip in his international career. Following the defeat in 2016, he announced his retirement from international football, a decision that was met a “Don’t Go Leo” campaign. A message Messi eventually paid heed to.
A few days after his 34th birthday, he will become Argentina’s most capped footballer. Of course, with 73 goals so far, he is also the highest goal scorer for his country.
But in his twilight years, can he bring the same kind of glory for home country as he did for Barcelona, his home away from home.
Messi, who had the chance to pick Spain to play for, however stayed loyal.
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