Country: Argentina
Club: Paris Saint-Germain F.C.
Position: Forward
Age: 35
Leo Messi, commonly known as Lionel Andrés Messi, is an Argentine professional football player who heads the Argentina national team in addition to playing forward for Ligue 1 Club Paris Saint-Germain.
Messi, who is recognized as one of the all-time best players, has a record seven Ballon d’Or victories, a record six European Golden Shoes, and in 2020, he was selected for the Ballon d’Or Dream Team.
He spent his entire professional career with Barcelona, retiring from the team in 2021 after winning a club-record 35 trophies there, including 10 La Liga championships, seven Copa del Rey championships, and four UEFA Champions Leagues.
Messi is a talented playmaker who has a knack for scoring goals. He owns the records for the most goals in La Liga, a La Liga season, and European leagues, the most hat-tricks in La Liga and the UEFA Champions League, and the most assists in La Liga, a La Liga season, and the Copa América.
He also holds the record for the most goals scored outside of South America by a man. Messi has the most goals by a player for a single club with over 750 in his professional career for club and nation.
After a season that fell short of his usual lofty expectations, Lionel Messi has gotten off to a scorching start in the 2022–23 season, his second at Paris Saint–Germain.
The Argentine legend has nine competitive club matches under his belt this season and has four goals and seven assists.
Playing Style
His small, left-footed dribbling style of play attracted analogies to that of his countryman Diego Maradona, who referred to Messi as his heir.
As we all know, Messi is much more than just a goal scorer. He is in fact very inventive in how he sets others up to find the internet.
Messi has contributed seven assists for PSG thus far this season in nine games, averaging 0.77 per 90 minutes.
At that rate, he should likely surpass the 16 assists he registered with the French champions last season and may even come very close to shattering his record of 33 assists established with Barcelona back in the 2011–12 season.
Trivia and Additional Info
After making his senior debut in August 2005, Messi went on to win the 2007 Copa América, where he was named the tournament’s young player, and become the youngest Argentine to play and score in a FIFA World Cup in 2006.
Since August 2011, when he became the team’s captain, he has guided Argentina to three consecutive finals: the 2015 and 2016 Copa Américas, where he earned the Golden Ball in 2015, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, for which he won the Golden Ball.
He became the first football player and the first athlete from a team sport to win the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award when he received it in February 2020. Later that year, Messi overcame the $1 billion mark in career earnings to become the second football player (and second athlete in a team sport).