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All About Messi - A Soccer Player
Messi Born on June 24, 1987, in Rosario, Argentina, soccer
player Lionel Messi
moved to Spain at the age of 13, after the FC Barcelona club
agreed to pay for
hormone-deficiency treatments. Messi became a star in his
new country, leading
his club to championships.
Messi is the only football player in history to win five
FIFA Ballons d'Or, four of
which he won consecutively, and the first player to win
three European Golden
Shoes.
Messi's parents, Jorge and Ceclia, decided on a regimen
of nightly growth-
hormone injections for their son, though it soon proved
impossible to pay several
hundred dollars per month for the medication. So, at the age
of 13, when Messi
was offered the chance to train at soccer powerhouse FC
Barcelona's youth
academy, La Masia, and have his medical bills covered by the
team, Messi's family
picked up and moved across the Atlantic to make a new home
in Spain.
Messi eventually grew to 5 feet and 7 inches, and with his
short stature, speed
and relentless attacking style, he drew comparisons to
another famous
Argentinean footballer: Diego Maradona. Messi steered
Barcelona to a wealth of
success, most notably in 2009, when the
left-footer's team captured the
Champions League, La Liga, and Spanish Super Cup titles.
That same year, after
two consecutive runner-up finishes, he took home his first
FIFA "World Player of
the Year" honor / Ballon d'Or award.
At the start of 2013, in club football, Messi has scored 292
goals from a total of
59 appearances, and in international football, 31 goals
from 76 appearances.
At the end of 2012, Messi turned down a very lucrative offer
to play for an
unnamed Russian side. It would have given Messi a salary of
€ 20 million a year
and made Messi the most expensive player in the world
(Barcelona would have
been paid € 250million). He turned down the offer because he
was unsure if he
would be playing in major European championships and the
difficulties in moving
to Russia. Instead he signed a contract with Barcelona until
the end of 1918.
When asked about moving to the English Premier league, Messi
revealed his
sense of commitment to Barcelona.
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