All football (soccer) enthusiasts, sports analysts,
and other football players have at some point
debated about one particular thing. Is Lionel
Messi the greatest player ever? He's won every
major soccer award – multiple times. He holds
multiple scoring records. He's so consistently
amazing on the field that sportscasters have
trouble coming up with the words to talk about
him during games. He's regularly compared to
another great native Argentine footballer known
as Diego Maradona . With all eyes on the World
Cup , all of those football enthusiasts, sports
analysts, and fellow football players, are again
debating whether Lionel Messi really is the best
player ever. He is certainly one of the most
beloved and surprisingly humble players in the
world right now. So who exactly is this man who
is essentially a living legend ? Turns out, Lionel
Messi is a man full of very interesting
contradictions…

Lionel Messi was born in June 24, 1987 in
Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina. Rosario is a rather
small town and his parents are regular working
class people. During Messi's early years, his
father worked in a steel factory and his mother
cleaned houses. He got his first football when he
was three, and began playing football at the local
club when he was 5, coached by his father. It
was almost instantly apparent, that he had
something special. When he was eight, he
shifted to Newell's Old Boys, another local youth
team. For the next four years, Newell's Old Boys
would so dominate the youth circuit that they
became known as "The Machine of '87 '". The team
lost only one match in four years.
Messi was a standout player on an already
standout team, and multiple high-profile youth
programs were interested in him. However,
soccer players are generally tall, rangy athletes,
and Messi wasn't growing like those around him.
When he was eleven, he was diagnosed with
growth hormone deficiency. The medical
condition, which can cause bone density
problems, depression, diminished body mass, and
even memory loss, is treatable, but incredibly
expensive. No one really wanted to take on the
responsibility of a potentially sick player who was
going to require medical care. Messi's relatives
in Spain stepped in, and convinced Carles Rexach ,
the sporting director of FC Barcelona, to give the
young player a trial with Barcelona's youth team.
It took watching only one game for Rexach to
know Messi had something special. Eager to
sign him, he actually wrote the young player's
first contract on a napkin, as it was the only piece
of paper he had nearby right then. After some
convincing by Rexach, the team's management
agreed to pay for Messi's medical treatments if he
moved to Spain and began training with them.
The tiny player from a tiny town in Argentina, was
on his way.

He grew up in Barcelona's amazing youth
system. His fellow players were initially duped by
his small size and shyness, but quickly realized
that he was a force to be reckoned with the
moment he stepped on the pitch. Barcelona fans
began to take notice of him, as well, as he moved
up through the youth league teams at a record
rate. After playing on the junior Infantil B & C
teams for three years, it was clear to everyone
that he was a straight up child prodigy.
Barcelona was suffering financial problems,
however, and upper management wanted to let
him go. Not only were they paying for his
medical treatments, they were also paying for his
family to live in Barcelona. His coaches begged
to keep him. Ultimately, they did, and he repaid
them by zooming his way through five different
teams between 2003 and 2004. His level of play
in Juvenil B got him promoted to Juvenil A. He
was then promoted to FC Barcelona's C team,
then quickly bounced to Barcelona B, playing for
both the B and C teams for part of 2004. He was
promoted to the A team late in 2004, and became
the youngest club player to play in La Liga .
When he scored his first goal, during his second
pro game, he became the youngest La Liga player
to ever score in a professional match. He was 17
years, 10 months, and seven days old. (That
record has since been broken by his teammate,
Bojan Krkic, who scored his goal off of a Messi
assist.)
Since then, he has been nearly unstoppable. His
level of play has earned him a rabid fan base
around the world. There are huge Messi fan
clubs from Brooklyn, New York to Fukuoka,
Japan. No matter the country, football
enthusiasts are simply fascinated by the man
many refer to as a "genius". He is the first player
to have won the coveted Ballon d'Or four times,
consecutively. He's won the European Gold Shoe
three times. As a member of FC Barcelona, he's
set multiple records, including becoming the first
and only player to top-score in four consecutive
Champions League matches. He became the first
player to score five goals in one Champions
League match during a game in 2012. He
currently holds the European record for goals
scored in a single season and the La Liga record
for goals scored in a single season. He is the
only player in football history, who has ever
scored a goal against every team in professional
football in consecutive games. That's just a
sample of his records and accolades. Fans
actually bow to him when he's on the field,
worshipping him like a present day God.

na u be him brother? awon olofofo

There's no denying that he is truly one of the
greatest players ever. However, the
contradictions come in to play with the man that
is Messi. His relationship with his home country
of Argentina, is, shall we say, less adoring. In
fact, the one place he doesn't receive full-blown
adulation, is Argentina. Argentine football fans
are not so pleased with the fact that he has spent
most of his career in Spain. It's viewed as mildly
traitorous. When he began playing for the
Argentine National Team in 2004, it didn't go so
well. His level of play was noticeably different
with his home country's team, and the Argentine
press and public were very clear about the fact
that this was not acceptable. Having played in
Spain for so many years, with a team made up of
young men that he'd grown up with in the youth
system there, he found adjusting to his Argentine
teammates to be difficult. He rallied, however,
and helped them to the 2005 FIFA U-20 World
Cup prize. He was the Cup's top scorer, in fact,
with 6 goals. He became the youngest Argentine
player to score in the FIFA World Cup a year
later. All seemed to be forgiven by 2008, when
he led the Argentine team to a Gold at the
Olympics. He is now the Captain of the National
Team.
He makes $41 million per year in base salary
alone. Endorsements bring in an additional $23
million for an annual income of $64 million
dollars. His total net worth, as of this writing, is
$180 million dollars . And that number is
climbing, FAST. Sponsors actually beg Lionel to
work with them. He has deals with everyone
from Adidas to Gillette to Turkish Airlines, and is
currently ranked second, behind Portuguese
footballer Cristiano Ronaldo , as the top football
earner in the world. Ronaldo, his chief rival for
the mantle of "best player", is model handsome,
tall, and is known for pointing out that he is at the
top of the food chain.

Messi, on the other hand, seems almost
physically uncomfortable with the accolades,
attention, and money. He rarely grants
interviews. He owns multiple luxury properties,
but no one except close friends and family know
what they look like inside. He won't let anyone
photograph the interiors. When his first child,
Thiago, was born, the announcement appeared as
one line on FC Barcelona's website, " Leo Messi is
a father." He thanked God for the gift of his son
on his Facebook page (where he has 62.7 million
followers), and that was it. No publications were
allowed to have photos. He still talks to his
friends from "The Machine of '87′" back in Rosario
on a regular basis. He still owns his family's first
home, though they no longer live there. When he
trains in Argentina for International games, he will
drive the three hours from Buenos Aires to
Rosario to have dinner with his family, sleep
there, then drive back for practice the next day.
He oversees the Leo Messi Foundation , which
supports education and healthcare for children.
Through the foundation, Argentine children with a
severe illnesses can receive treatment in Spain.
The Foundation covers their transportation,
hospital, and recuperation fees.
Messi is, for all intents and purposes, a regular
guy. He just happens to be a regular guy who is
completely unstoppable when you put a ball near
his feet. In fact, he runs faster with a football,
than without it. He's only 27 years old. He will
most likely continue to set records and make
plays that no one has ever seen before. He just
keeps getting better. So is he the greatest player
ever? It will probably be a long time before
anyone can truly say. Is he the greatest player
right now? Almost certainly – and he's definitely
the most exciting. While football enthusiasts,
analysts, and players around the world argue
about whether he's the best, they all still stop to
watch him blow pass every defender on his way
to another goal. If Messi's ability to shut
everyone up, even his detractors, isn't a major
sign of greatness, it's hard to know what is.

Its simple why he looks so great: James 4:10