Lionel Messi is one of the most famous football players in the world. He is known by so many people who are not even fans of football that he can rightfully be considered a legend of this sport. And here are twenty of the most interesting facts about Messi that you might not know.
Lionel Messi was born in 1879 in Rosario, Argentina. This is the same city where the famous revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara was born.
As a child, no one saw him as a future famous football player. He was very short and far from the strongest on the team. Despite this, Lionel began to be interested in sports at the same time – he can be seen in group photos of the team, where he was the smallest of all.
Football skill Lionel owns not the only one from his family. He has relatives who also devoted their lives to this sport. They are not as famous as he is, but they also play football – these are South African athletes Max and Emmanuel Biancucci.
Messi is the second most financially wealthy player on the planet. It amounted to 180 million dollars. In the first place – Cristiano Ronaldo with his 230 million.
Since 2005, in addition to the citizenship of Argentina, the athlete has one more – Spanish. He began living in Barcelona at the age of 13. He moved to Spain to develop as a footballer, and immediately began playing in the Barcelona youth team, with his own father acting as an agent.
The magazine “French Football” for the first time in its existence presented an award to an Argentine athlete – and it turned out to be Messi. Before that, the Argentines did not receive any awards from the publication.
Many experts call Lionel the best footballer of his generation. And this is true – in any case, he can definitely be called one of the best: from the beginning of his professional career, he immediately began to score goal after goal, not every athlete has such a successful career.
Indeed, in 2009, Messi received the title of the best player in the world. And shortly after that, he received the prestigious Diamond Ball award.
Lionel became one of the youngest players to score 100 goals. This happened when the Argentine was 22.5 years old.
Every day the athlete earns 128 thousand dollars.
Another famous player, Ronaldinho, gave Messi his number 10 shirt. After that, Lionel, who had previously worn the number 19, officially changed it to 10.
2009 was the first year that Messi received the Diamond Ball, but it was not the first or only time he was nominated for this award. This also happened in 2006 and 2007. In 2006, he received third place, nominated for the Golden Ball.
He became one of the youngest players who took part in the games in the first team. It was Barcelona.
Messi prefers to spend his free time with his family. Sometimes – also behind a game console.
He does not always like to communicate with the public. He prefers to discuss important things in correspondence.
He donates a lot of money to charity: he has his own charitable foundation, where they help children with various complex diagnoses. He also donates money to children with autism, and in 2013 helped renovate a children’s hospital in his hometown.
Messi is of Italian descent. His father also played football – coached the youth team.
2013 was generally filled with special events for the Argentinean athlete. Then he attended an audience with the Pope. After that, he said that this day was one of the most important in his life.
There is a golden sculpture associated with Lionel Messi – it was created by a certain jeweler from Japan. This is a copy of the left leg of a football player, but several times larger. It weighs 25 kilograms and was sold at one of the auctions – it is not specified what kind of auction it was. All the money from its sale (and it was estimated at more than $ 5 million) went to help victims of the earthquake in Japan.
The football player almost immediately after starting his career at Barcelona received an offer from another famous team – Juventus. He refused this offer.