One of the greatest soccer academies in the world is located in north-eastern Spain, known for producing world class players. Some of the greats who completely changed the game came from this program. Located in Barcelona, La Masia is the academy of the Catalan giants, FC Barcelona.
Little did they know that in the year 2000 on a trip to check out a promising young talent in Rosario, Argentina, they would scout the greatest player to ever play the game. This young player was a 13 year-old Lionel Messi.
They say one player can change a team, but to what extent? How good was he at Barcelona? It’s important to understand that what he did when he was playing in LaLiga was not normal. Opposing teams would have meetings and create new systems just to try stopping him.
Making his debut at age 16 in 2003, he came on during a friendly against Porto. From that point forward, he would make 778 appearances for Barcelona in all competitions, scoring 672 goals and 269 assists.
Messi scored 36 hat tricks, and once even scored five goals against Bayer 04 Leverkusen in the 2011/2012 season. He holds the record for most goals in a calendar year (91) in 2012. To put this in perspective, among the top scorers in the 21st-century, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewnadowski are tied for second with 69 goals.
Not only was he individually unstoppable, his teams from 2003 to 2020 were extremely dominant winning 34 trophies including 10 LaLiga titles, 4 Champions Leagues, 7 Copa del Reys, and 8 Spanish Super Cups. Messi was a part of Pep Guardiola’s 2009 sextuple winning team, which is when a team wins the six trophies available to them in a calendar year. Only two teams in soccer history have won the sextuple, the other being Bayern Munich’s 2020 squad.
Messi’s stats are unreal and he holds the record for most assists and goals in LaLiga, but to watch him play is something special. No one in the world plays like him. As he is 37 years old and close to retirement, everyone should watch him at least one more time before he plays his final game. New and upcoming talents are always being called the “new Messi”, but no one will ever play and have an impact on a game the way that Messi has.
