Lionel Messi

Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi (born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for and captains both Major League Soccer club Inter Miami and the Argentina national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history, Messi has set numerous records for individual accolades won throughout his professional footballing career, including eight Ballon d'Ors, six European Golden Shoes, and eight times being named the world's best player by FIFA. In 2025, he was named the All Time Men's World Best Player by the IFFHS. He is the most decorated player in the history of professional football, having won 46 team trophies. Messi's records include most goals in a calendar year (91), most goals for a single club (672 for Barcelona), most goals in La Liga (474), most assists in international football (61), most goal contributions in the FIFA World Cup (21), and most goal contributions in the Copa América (32). A prolific goalscorer and creative playmaker, Messi has scored over 890 senior career goals and provided over 400 assists for club and country—the most of any player—resulting in over 1,300 goal contributions, the highest total in the sport's history.

Messi made his competitive debut for Barcelona at age 17 in October 2004. He gradually established himself as an integral player for the club, and during his first uninterrupted season at age 22 in 2008–09 he helped Barcelona achieve the first treble in Spanish football. This resulted in Messi winning the first of four consecutive Ballon d'Ors, and by the 2011–12 season he set the European record for most goals in a season and established himself as Barcelona's all-time top scorer. During the 2014–15 campaign, where he became the all-time top scorer in La Liga, he led Barcelona to a historic second treble, leading to a fifth Ballon d'Or in 2015. He assumed Barcelona's captaincy in 2018 and won a record sixth Ballon d'Or in 2019. At Barcelona, Messi won a club-record 34 trophies, including ten La Liga titles and four UEFA Champions Leagues, among others. Financial difficulties at Barcelona led to Messi signing with French club Paris Saint-Germain in August 2021, where he won the Ligue 1 title during both of his seasons there. He joined MLS club Inter Miami in July 2023, leading the club to win their first MLS Cup in 2025, whilst also winning back-to-back league MVP awards in 2024 and 2025.

An Argentine international, Messi is the national team's all-time leading goalscorer and most-capped player. Several years after his senior debut in 2005, he won the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Assuming captaincy in 2011, he led Argentina to three consecutive finals in the 2014 World Cup, the 2015 Copa América and the Copa América Centenario, all of which they lost. After initially announcing his international retirement in 2016, he returned to help his country narrowly qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Messi was central to ending Argentina's 28-year trophy drought by winning the 2021 Copa América, which helped him secure his seventh Ballon d'Or that year. In the following year, he led Argentina to winning the 2022 World Cup, the country's first in 36 years. He followed this achievement with a record-extending eighth Ballon d'Or in 2023. Messi was victorious at the 2024 Copa América, his third major international title.

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, the first team-sport athlete to win it. In 2020, Messi was named to the Ballon d'Or Dream Team and became the second footballer and second team-sport athlete to surpass $1 billion in career earnings. Following his arrival and impact on football in the US, Messi was named Time's Athlete of the Year in 2023, and was bestowed with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US president Joe Biden in 2025.

Early life

Messi was born on 24 June 1987 in Rosario, Santa Fe Province. He was the third of four children of Jorge Messi, head of department at the Acindar pressed steel manufacturer in Villa Constitución, and his wife Celia Cuccittini, who worked in a magnet manufacturing workshop. His parents had met as youngsters in Rosario's south-eastern district of Las Heras, where Messi himself later grew up, and had married on Jorge Messi's completion of military service in the Argentine Armed Forces in 1978. On his father's side, Messi is of Italian and Spanish descent, the great-grandson of immigrants from the north-central Adriatic Marche region of Italy (with his surname coming from Porto Recanati), and on his mother's side, he has primarily Italian ancestry. 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 Matías, and his cousins, Maximiliano and Emanuel Biancucchi, both of whom became professional footballers.

At the age of four he joined local club Abanderado Grandoli FC, where he was coached by his father. Another early influence came from his maternal grandmother, Celia, who accompanied him to training and matches. He was greatly affected by her death, shortly before his eleventh birthday. Since then, as a devout Catholic, he has celebrated his goals by looking up and pointing to the sky in tribute to his grandmother.

Youth career

Newell's Old Boys

Messi started playing for the Rosario-based football club Newell's Old Boys when he was seven years old; he would become a lifelong supporter of the club. During the six years he played for Newell's, he scored almost 500 goals, and was a member of "The Machine of '87", a nearly unbeatable youth team named for the year of their birth. Messi regularly entertained crowds by performing ball tricks during half-time, when the Newell's first team played home games. His goalscoring idol growing up was Brazilian striker Ronaldo, who Messi called "the best forward I've ever seen".

Messi's future as a professional player was threatened when, at the age of 10, he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. He began growth hormone therapy at age 11; however, his father's health insurance covered only two years of the therapy, which cost at least 1,000 pesos per month. Newell's agreed to contribute, but later reneged on their promise. Messi was scouted by the Buenos Aires club River Plate, whose playmaker Pablo Aimar he idolised. It was speculated for a time that Messi failed to sign with River Plate due to his ill health; however, in a 2019 interview, he revealed that River Plate had wanted to sign him after he scored four goals at a trial, and even offered to pay for his medical treatment, but Newell's refused to release his player card, preventing the transfer.

Barcelona

As the Messi family had relatives in Catalonia, they sought to arrange a trial with Barcelona in September 2000. First-team director Carles 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. 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. He was reserved by nature, and was so quiet that some of his teammates initially believed he was mute. At home, he suffered from homesickness after his mother moved back to Rosario with his brothers and younger sister, María Sol, while he stayed in Barcelona with his father.

After a year at Barcelona's youth academy, La Masia, Messi was finally enrolled in the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in February 2002. Now he could play in all competitions, and quickly befriended his teammates, among whom were Cesc Fàbregas and Gerard Piqué. After completing his growth hormone therapy at 14, Messi became an integral part of the "Baby Dream Team", Barcelona's greatest-ever youth side. During his first full season (2002–03), he was top scorer with 36 goals in 30 games for the Cadetes A, who won an unprecedented treble of the league, the Spanish cup, and the Copa Catalunya. In the Copa Catalunya final, their 4–1 victory over Espanyol became referred to in club lore as the partido de la máscara, the final of the mask. A week after suffering a broken cheekbone during a league match, Messi was allowed to start the game on the condition that he wear a plastic protector; soon hindered by the mask, he took it off and scored two goals in 10 minutes before his substitution. At the close of the season, he received an offer to join Arsenal, his first from a foreign club. Although Fàbregas and Piqué soon left for England with their own offers, Messi chose to remain in Barcelona.