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Lionel Messi

Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini (Rosario, Argentina, June 24, 1987), known as Leo Messi, is an Argentine soccer player who plays as a striker. Historical player of the Fútbol Club Barcelona, he is currently a free agent after ending his contract with Paris Saint-Germain of Ligue 1 in France. He is also an international with the Argentina team, a team of which he is captain.

Often considered the best player in the world and one of the best of all time,[9] he is the only footballer in history to have won, among other distinctions, seven Ballon d'Or awards, seven FIFA awards for best player of the world, six Golden Boots and two Golden Balls of the Soccer World Cup. In 2020, he became the first soccer player and the first Argentine to receive a Laureus award and was included in the Ballon d'Or Dream Team.

With Barcelona he has won 35 titles, including ten in La Liga, four in the UEFA Champions League and seven in the Copa del Rey.

A prolific scorer, he holds, among others, the records for the most goals in a season, [10] in the same club and in a calendar year. He is also the all-time top scorer for Barcelona and the Argentine team, in La Liga, the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup and the non-European player with the most goals in the UEFA Champions League.

Born and raised in the city of Rosario, at the age of 13 he settled in Spain, where Barcelona agreed to pay for treatment of the hormonal disease he had been diagnosed with as a child. After rapid progression through the Barcelona Youth Academy, he made his official first-team debut in October 2004, aged seventeen. Despite being injury prone early in his career, as early as 2006 he established himself as a pivotal player for the club. His first uninterrupted campaign was the 2008-09 season, in which Barcelona reached the first treble in Spanish football. Due to his style of playing as a small left-handed dribbler, [11] he was soon compared to compatriot Diego Maradona who, in 2007, declared him his "successor".

In 2009, at the age of twenty-two, he won his first Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award. Three successful seasons followed, in which he won an unprecedented four Ballon d'Ors in a row. His personal best campaign so far is the 2011-12 season, in which he set the record for most goals in a season, both in La Liga and in other European competitions. Over the next two seasons, he too suffered injuries and, in 2014, lost the Ballon d'Or to Cristiano Ronaldo, whom he considers his rival. He returned to his best form during the 2014-15 campaign, in which he surpassed the records for absolute top scorer in La Liga and the Champions League and achieved a historic second treble with Barcelona, as well as winning his fifth Ballon d'Or. winning it for the sixth and seventh time in 2019 and 2021.

As an Argentine international, he has represented his country in fourteen major tournaments. At the youth level, in 2005 he participated with the under-20 team in the South American Cup in Colombia and won the World Cup in the Netherlands, a tournament in which he finished as the best player and top scorer and, with the under-23, received the medal of gold at the 2008 Olympic Games. After making his debut in the senior team in August 2005, at the 2006 World Cup in Germany he became the youngest Argentine to play and score in a World Cup. The following year, in the Copa América, he was named the best young player of the tournament. As captain since August 2011, he reached the finals of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the 2015 Copa América and the Copa América Centenario with his team, as well as winning the 2021 Copa América against Brazil at the Maracana and, in 2022, the Finalissima against Italy at Wembley and the World Cup in Qatar against France at the Lusail stadium.