Meet The Players
Rafael Marquez | Didier Drogba | Kaka | Zinedine Zidane | Kasey Keller | Vojislav Dragovic | Oliver Kahn | Francesco Toldo | Alessandro Del Piero |Deco | Lionel Messi| Luis Figo| Alvaro Recoba| Bernd Schneider| David Villa| Jay Jay Okocha| Jefferson Fanfan
Lionel Messi bio | press
Lionel Messi was born in Santa Fe Province on June 24, 1987. At the age of five, he started playing football for Grandoli, a club coached by his father. In 1995, Messi switched to Newell's Old Boys.[2] At the age of 11, he was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency.[3] River Plate showed interest in Messi's progress, but did not have enough money to pay for the treatment of the illness, which cost over £500 a month. As Argentina's economy was collapsing, Carles Rexach, then sporting director of FC Barcelona, was made aware of Messi's talent, and Barcelona signed him after watching him play,[4] offering to pay for the medical bills if he was willing to move to start a new life in Spain.[2] His family moved with the young player to Europe and he starred in the club’s youth teams.[4] He soon found himself starting for the Barcelona B team, averaging more than a goal per game, by scoring 37 goals in 30 matches. In October 2004 Messi made his official debut for the first team against RCD Espanyol, becoming the third-youngest player to ever play for FC Barcelona. When he scored his first senior goal for the club against Albacete Balompié on May 1, 2005, Messi was 17 years, 10 months and 7 days old, becoming the youngest to ever score in a La Liga game for FC Barcelona. Messi was offered the chance to play for the Spanish national side, but he declined, preferring to wait for the opportunity to play for the country of his birth. In June 2004 he got his chance, playing in an under-20 friendly match against Paraguay. In June 2005 Messi played in the U-20 team that won the Football World Youth Championship in Netherlands, picking up the Golden Boot as top scorer with 6 goals, and the Golden Ball for the best player of the tournament. Despite his youth, Lionel was already being compared to Diego Maradona, one of the greatest football players of all time. On June 27, FC Barcelona renewed his contract until 2010, establishing a selling clause of €150 million (which happens to be 30 million more than his teammate in Barcelona, Ronaldinho).[2][5] HonorsWith Argentina National Team: With FC Barcelona: Personal Honours: Content from Wikipedia is protected under copyleft. You can reuse this content as long as you directly link back to the original article. | 
