Lionel Andrés "
Leo"
Messi Cuccittini is an Argentine professional
footballer who plays for Spanish club
FC Barcelona and the
Argentina national team. He is a
forward and serves as
captain for Argentina.
By the age of 21, Messi had received
Ballon d'Or and
FIFA World Player of the Year nominations. The following year, in 2009, he won his first
Ballon d'Or and
FIFA World Player of the Year awards. He followed this up by winning the inaugural
FIFA Ballon d'Or in
2010, and then again in
2011 and
2012. He also won the 2010–11
UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. At the age of 24, Messi became
Barcelona's all-time top scorer
in all official club competitions. In September 2014 he scored his
400th senior career goal for club and country aged just 27. In November
2014, Messi became the
all-time top scorer in La Liga, and the
all-time leading goalscorer in the UEFA Champions League.
Often considered the best player in the world and rated by some in the sport as the greatest of all time,
[3][4][5][6][7][8] Messi is the first football player in history to win four
FIFA/
Ballons d'Or, all of which he won consecutively, and the first to win three
European Golden Shoe awards. With Barcelona, Messi has won seven La Ligas, three
Copas del Rey, six
Supercopas de España, four
UEFA Champions Leagues, two
UEFA Super Cups and two
FIFA Club World Cups.
Messi is the only player to
top-score in four consecutive Champions League seasons, and also holds the record for the
most hat-tricks scored in the competition
with five. In March 2012, he made Champions League history by becoming
the first player to score five goals in one match. In the 2011–12
season, Messi set the European record for
most goals scored in a season with 73 goals, set the goalscoring
record in a single La Liga season with 50 goals, and became the second player ever to score in six different official competitions in one season after
Pedro.
[9]
In February 2013 he scored his 300th Barcelona goal. On 30 March 2013,
Messi scored in his 19th consecutive La Liga game, becoming the first
footballer in history to net in consecutive matches against every team
in a professional football league. He extended his record scoring streak
to 21 consecutive league matches. In March 2014, with a hat-trick
against
Real Madrid, Messi became the player with the most goals and most hat-tricks in the history of
El Clásico. In October 2014, Messi, aged 27, became the youngest player to score 250 goals in La Liga. In November 2014, Messi scored a
hat-trick against Sevilla to reach 253 La Liga goals, becoming the
all-time top scorer in La Liga. In May 2015, he scored his 77th Champions League goal to become its
all-time leading scorer.
Messi helped
Argentina win the
2005 FIFA U-20 World Cup, finishing as both the best player and the top scorer (with six goals). In
2006, he became the youngest Argentine to play and score in the
FIFA World Cup, and won a runners-up medal at the
Copa América in
2007, in which he was named young player of the tournament. In
2008, he won an
Olympic Gold Medal with the
Argentina Olympic football team. At the
2014 World Cup, he led Argentina to the
final, winning four consecutive Man of the Match awards in the process, and received the
Golden Ball award as the best player of the tournament. In 2013,
SportsPro rated him the second-most marketable athlete in the world.
[10] His playing style and stature have drawn comparisons to compatriot
Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi his "
successor".
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