Lionel Andrés Messi was born on June 24, 1987 in Rosario as third of 4 siblings. His father worked in a steelworks and his mother was a cleaning lady. Messi has Italian and Spanish roots.
His brothers loved to play football and quickly infected Messi with this passion.
At the age of 5, he joined the local Grandoli club where his father was a coach and a year later he moved to Newell's Old Boys. Together with his peers from the club they were called "Machine 87" because they lost only one match in 4 years. In 6 years he played in Newell's Old Boys he scored over 500 goals.
At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with pituitary dwarfism. At first, the club agreed to financially support Messi's treatment, which cost about $ 900 a month, but they quickly withdrew from it.
Messi's family living in Barcelona arranged for him a meeting with the scout of FC Barcelona who immediately noticed his talent and wanted to sign a contract with him as soon as possible. That there was no paper nearby, he wrote a contract on a handkerchief.
In 2001, Messi and his family moved to Barcelona.
At the beginning In Barcelona Messi played very rarely. As a foreigner, he could only play in the Catalan sparrings and the Catalan league, so it was difficult for Messi to integrate with the team. Messi missed
for the home and mother who, back to Argentina with his siblings.
After a year in Spain, Messi was finally enrolled in the Spanish Football Association. He could already play in all matches and he made friends with his teammates, including Fabregas and Pique.
When he was 14 years old, he ended his hormonal treatment and in 2003 he became the top scorer in the junior league.
Some time later he got an offer to move to Arsenal, but he preferred to stay in Barcelona.
In the 2003/2004 season he broke the record appearing in five Barcelona teams.
At the age of 16 Messi made his debut in the first team of Barcelona in a friendly match against Porto. Despite the fact that Messi in this match did not score any goal, he impressed the coaches so much that they let him come to their training once a week. He met there and made friends with a Brazilian star - Ronaldinho - who called him a younger brother.
A year later, Messi was transferred to the first Barcelona team, where he sat on the bench. And he became the youngest player in the history who played in the Primera División.
May 1, 2005 in the match against Albacete Messi scored his first goal in the league, which made him the youngest league scorer goal for the club. In the same year he got Spanish citizenship.
In 2007 he scored three goals in a match against Real Madrid, which allowed Barcelona to draw 3 to 3.
