Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini, better known as Lionel Messi by his football fans, is a professional footballer who hails from Argentina. Messi was born on the 27th of June in 1987. He is currently 31 years old now. Messi was born and raised in the central part of Argentina, where he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. He subsequently moved to Barcelona in Spain, where the Barcelona football club offered to pay for his medical treatment in exchange for his participation in the youth football team for Barcelona. Messi made his competitive footballing debut in 2004 when he was just 17 years old.
Lionel Messi is considered one of the greatest footballers of all time. When he was just 22 years old, he won the 2009 Ballon d’Or and the 2009 FIFA World Player of the Year award, cementing his place among the greats of the game. He is also an incredibly popular footballer, and many support the Barcelona and Argentina football team due to his affiliation with those sides. He is also an incredibly humble player, and he has rejected million dollar offers from other football clubs due to his affiliation with the Barcelona football club, which supported him during his formative years. He has won countless accolades in the footballing world, and now he has set his sights on winning his maiden FIFA World Cup for Argentina.
- “You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.” – Lionel Messi
- “I always thought I wanted to play professionally, and I always knew that to do that I’d have to make a lot of sacrifices. I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people. Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream.” – Lionel Messi
- “Money is not a motivating factor…My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn’t paid to be a professional footballer, I would willingly play for nothing.” – Lionel Messi
- “The best decisions aren’t made with your mind, but with your instinct.” – Lionel Messi
- “Barcelona gave me everything, they took a chance on me when nobody else would. I never have any desire to play for anybody else, I will be here for as long as they want me.” – Lionel Messi
- “Being a bit famous now gives me the opportunity to help people who really need it, especially children.” – Lionel Messi
- “I think my desire to always get better, [is a trait that accounts for my success], to always want more, to always be my top critic, and accepting the good and the bad.” – Lionel Messi
- “I start early and I stay late, day after day, year after year. It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.” – Lionel Messi
- “I think my desire to always get better, to always want more, to always be my top critic, and accepting the good and the bad.” – Lionel Messi
- “I am a normal person. I have the same life as any human being. When I finish playing, doing my work, I have my family, my friends, and I live like any other person.” – Lionel Messi
- “There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a happy and smiling child. I always help in any way I can, even if it’s just by signing an autograph. A child’s smile is worth more than all the money in the world.” – Lionel Messi
- “Every year I try to grow as a player and not get stuck in a rut. I try to improve my game in every way possible. But that trait is not something I’ve worked on, it’s part of me.” – Lionel Messi
- “The day you think there is no improvements to be made is a sad one for any player.” – Lionel Messi
- “I try to use pressure to help me in every game. Pressure helps me do things to the best of my ability. I like it. I don’t feel pressure; quite the contrary, because I always enjoy what I’m doing and that’s playing football.” – Lionel Messi
- “Goals are only important if they win games.” – Lionel Messi
- “I start early, and I stay late, day after day after day.” – Lionel Messi
- “I never think about the play or visualize anything. I do what comes to me at the moment. Instinct. It has always been that way.” – Lionel Messi
- “I do it because I love it and that’s all I care about.” – Lionel Messi
- “Sometimes you have to accept you can’t win all the time.” – Lionel Messi
- “I’m always proudest whenever I’ve been part of a trophy-winning team. Lifting a title makes me feel so happy because it’s what I want to do in football: be successful.” – Lionel Messi
- “Something deep in my character allows me to take the hits and get on with trying to win.” – Lionel Messi
- “My ambition is to always get better and better.” – Lionel Messi
- “I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people. Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream.” – Lionel Messi
- “Whether it’s a friendly match, or for points, or a final, or any game – I play the same. I’m always trying to be my best, first for my team, for myself, for the fans, and to try and win.” – Lionel Messi
- “I do it because I love it and that’s all I care about.” – Lionel Messi
- “In football as in watchmaking, talent and elegance mean nothing without rigour and precision.” – Lionel Messi
- “When the year starts the objective is to win it all with the team, personal records are secondary.” – Lionel Messi
- “I don’t need the best hairstyle or the best body. Just give me a ball at my feet and I’ll show you what I can do.” – Lionel Messi
- “I go out and do the best I can in each game, and I don’t think about the fouls other players will commit or whether I might be injured. It only does you harm to worry about those things.” – Lionel Messi
- “Today I am the happiest man in the world, my son was born and thanks to God for this gift.” – Lionel Messi
- “It was hard for me because it was such a big change. I left a lot behind in Argentina and unlike other children living at the Masia, I hardly ever got to visit my family. I only saw them once or twice a year and that was very hard for me.” – Lionel Messi
- “The best decisions aren’t made with your mind, but with your instincts.” – Lionel Messi
- “Whether it’s a goal, or winning a game, I’m never satisfied.” – Lionel Messi
- “I want to be world champion, but not to change the perception of others towards me or to achieve greatness like they say, but rather, to reach the goal with my national team and to add a world cup to my list of titles.” – Lionel Messi
- “Just to hear people saying and thinking that makes me very proud indeed. But I try not to think about it too much and just focus on enjoying everything that I have in this life.” – Lionel Messi
