Lionel Messi was one of four children of laborer Jorge Horacio Messi and his wife Celia Maria Cuccittini. Growing up with his older brothers, he spent his childhood in a poor part of his town, riding his bike and throwing homemade water bombs at passing buses with friends. Grandma Celia decided at the age of four that her grandson should become a football player.
Read the full biography of Lionel Messi at Thevoicemag.ru.
Messi’s father coached the Grandoli soccer team. And the young footballer took his first sporting steps there. He moved to Newell’s Old Boys at the age of eight. During Lionel’s time with the team, she was unbeatable and earned the unspoken name “Machine of 87”. Messi scored 600 goals while playing for the club.
Messi owes a lot to team doctor Diego Schwarzstein. He monitored the health of the players and discovered hormonal problems in Lionel. It turned out that his body lacked growth hormone. At the time the disease was discovered, Argentina was in an economic crisis and the insurance company excluded hormone treatment from coverage.
Messi’s growth could have stopped if not intervened in time. Neither the parents nor the club the footballer played for had the means for treatment. The ancestors of the young footballer came from Catalonia, so his father decided to turn to the Barcelona club.
The young footballer’s achievements impressed the club’s coaches, but the management was in no hurry to sign the contract. Firstly, there were no precedents for the club to sign such young players, and secondly, a considerable sum was needed for treatment. Messi would cost the club tens of thousands of euros per month. Thirdly, the boy was not ready to live in the club dormitory and his father demanded that Barcelona pay for his apartment. Only after the ultimatum presented by the footballer’s agent was the famous napkin contract signed.
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Messi’s age at the time of signing the contract was barely 14 years old. The player signed a full contract with the club in March 2001. He received €600,000 per year and rental payments.
After solving the problems, Dr. Schwarzstein, who diagnosed the disease in time, told the young Lionel: “I don’t know if you will become better than Maradona, but you will definitely be taller.” The prophecy came true, and Messi grew a few centimeters taller than the Argentine football legend.
10 facts about Lionel Messi
- He was asked to stay all over the country. In 2016, after losing to the Chilean national team in the Copa America, Messi announced that he was leaving the national team. Upon his return to Argentina, dozens of fans were waiting for him in national team jerseys with the number 10. They cut off the team bus from the airport in the rain, chanting: “Messi, don’t leave!” One of the fans’ posters read: “Messi, I love you more than my mother!” The mayor of Buenos Aires unveiled a statue of the footballer to convince him to stay. In early July 2016, 50,000 fans gathered at the obelisk in Buenos Aires, chanting “Messi, don’t go!” The hashtag #NoTeVayasLio (“don’t drive, Leo”) became one of the most cited on social networks. In August 2016, the footballer announced that he changed his mind and stayed.
- He is one of the highest paid players in the world. Since 2008, Lionel Messi has been Barcelona’s highest paid player. His salary increased from €7.8 million to €13 million over the next five years. According to France Football, between 2009 and 2014, Lionel was the highest paid player in the world and the first player whose income exceeded 40 million euros. In 2013 he received 41 million euros and a year later about 60 million euros per year. In 2018, his income exceeded 100 million euros, and a year later, according to Forbes, he topped the list of the highest paid athletes in the world, beating Cristiano Ronaldo. The publication estimated his annual income at $127 million.
- They invented a separate word for him in Spanish. Leo Messi deserves to make his name a household word. The adjective “inmessionante” appeared in the dictionary of the publishing house Santillana. Its definition is: “a quality adjective that refers to Lionel Messi, his perfect way of playing football, his ability to surpass himself. It is used to describe the best qualities of a football player. Coach Pep Guardiola said Messi is the only player who runs faster with the ball than without it. Lionel himself explains the unusual way of playing football by the conditions in which he grew up. When playing on the street, it was important to hold the ball so it wouldn’t be picked up.
- I got to Barcelona thanks to oranges. Messi is a football player whose biography contains many legends. Fabian Soldini, one of the agents who arranged for Lionel to be tracked at the Barcelona club, recalled that when they met he gave him a kilogram of oranges and several tennis balls. He set a condition: he will contact the club if the young footballer learns to juggle oranges and balls with his foot in a week. A week later, Lionel surprised Soldini. He was able to hold an orange with his foot, made 113 blows, and a tennis ball – 120. Fabian recorded Messi’s training on video and sent it to Barcelona, after which the representatives of the club arranged a meeting.
- He was transferred to Barcelona only after the ultimatum. Messi, for whom Barcelona became the club where the footballer received his basic education, arrived in the capital of Catalonia in September 2000. He pleased the coaches with six goals in the first training session. However, they did not dare to make a decision without the sports director of the club, Carles Reshak. After some time, Reshak returned from Australia and a new test was arranged for the young footballer. He was released on the pitch against 15-year-old footballers. Messi showed himself perfectly and Reshak assured that the decision was made. Lionel and his father returned to their homeland, but received no answer. In December 2000, Horacio Gagioli, the representative of the athlete, delivered an ultimatum to the representatives of the club: either the contract or the footballer Lionel Messi plays for another club. So the contract was signed on a napkin.
- The napkin contract ended at the museum. A week after signing the contract in the Pompeya sports club restaurant, it was verified by a notary and supplemented with a guarantee certificate. Barcelona agreed to pay for Lionel’s treatment and housing costs. Horacio Gagioli, one of the participants in the historic event, kept the napkin in the Andorran bank for a long time. In an interview, he assured that he was offered millions for the artifact. He later donated the relic to the football club’s museum. Over the following years, Messi signed other contracts with Barcelona. By 2019, sports journalists counted eight documents.
- Soccer player Messi is a convicted tax cheat. In 2012, after the publication of the Panama Papers, information emerged that Messi had a company in Panama through which he collected funds, hid from taxes. The footballer was suspected of not paying more than 4 million euros in taxes. In August 2013, Messi, referring to the fact that he did not understand the complexity of tax schemes, paid more than 5 million euros. In 2016, he and his father appeared in court. Spanish prosecutors considered the father a prime suspect because he handled Lionel’s taxes. As a result, the player paid more than 2 million euros in fines and received 21 months of probation.
- He dedicates his goals to his grandmother. Lionel Messi is a soccer player who is known for reacting quite calmly to a scored goal. He raises his fingers to the sky. So he thanks his grandmother Celia, who saw the talent of a football player in her grandson at the age of four, convinced his parents to send him to the local football club and bought him new boots. She died when her grandson was 10 years old, prophesying him the glory of a great football player.
- Fans call him the goat. Footballer fans call him Goat, which translates as “goat”. In January 2019, Messi’s name was written with a goat emoji on the team’s Twitter account. Football with these animals was made by the football player himself. The secret is why, when answering the question of who is Messi, the fans say that the goat is simple. Goat is an acronym that stands for Greatest Of All Time: “the greatest of all time”.
- The press called him the atomic flea. The Spanish press called the footballer La Pulga Atómica, which means “the atomic flea”. Due to his short stature, Messiah’s center of gravity is lower than other players, allowing him to maneuver better and easily bypass opponents when attacking. This feature allowed the player to become one of the most successful shooters of all time.
Read the full biography of Lionel Messi at Thevoicemag.ru.
Source: The Voice Mag
I am Dawid Malan, a news reporter for 24 Instant News. I specialize in celebrity and entertainment news, writing stories that capture the attention of readers from all walks of life. My work has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications and I am passionate about delivering quality content to my readers.
