How A Winger Who Refused To Run Became The Best Player Ever

Managers often hate players who don’t run. They’re lazy, selfish, and often struggle to impress. So it might shock you to hear, the greatest player of all time, refused to run?

It sounds absurd, even laughable right? But how did Messi do it? And most importantly, how did he become the player in the world?

Well to find out, we need to back to the beginning. In the year 2000, a shy, quiet thirteen-year-old boy arrived in Catalonia with his dad from Argentina. It might be hard to believe, but there was a time when the name “Lionel Messi” meant nothing to the footballing world.

The young Messi hadn’t had it easy growing up. Doctors had diagnosed him with a growth hormone deficiency that was very expensive to treat, meaning his dreams of becoming a pro footballer were slim to none, at best. But there was no denying that the boy had shown incredible talent back home.

At Barcelona’s academy, the prestigious La Masia, Messi had to quickly adapt to playing with bigger, stronger kids. For a small kid, this was no easy feat, no matter how good he was with the ball at his feet. On top of that, Messi struggled to make friends in his new home.

The native Catalan kids would tease him for his Argentine accent, and many of the coaches at the academy wouldn’t give him a shot on account of his physique. The youngster would have to prove his worth on the pitch to earn respect. But it’s the true greats who know the game better than anyone.

Anyone who met the youngster or, worse, played against him, knew that Messi wasn’t just a special talent - he was that type of player you’ll only see once in 50 years. Seasoned players of the game saw how he kept the ball perfectly under control, dared to dribble through tight areas, and could speed past defenders with a quick burst of acceleration. The Barcelona players came together for the 2004/2005 season and told the manager, Frank Rijkaard, that Messi had to be included in the first-team squad.

This was the debut season for the future GOAT, and the beginning of his long evolution as a player. So, what did we get out of his first season in the top league? You might be shocked to hear that, regarding G/A stats, it was about what you’d expect from a promising seventeen-year-old.

In seven La Liga appearances, he scored one goal against Albacete. Not bad, for sure, but nothing mind-blowing, either. More fans started to notice Messi’s beautiful dribbling skills, but the media still didn’t pay all that much attention to the youngster.

Then summer of 2005 rolled around, and everything changed. Messi joined Argentina’s U-20s team for the World Cup, hosted in the Netherlands. Football media doesn’t usually focus much on youth competitions, but this year was different, all down to one special man.

Though the campaign got off to a rocky start with a 1-0 loss to the United States, Argentina finished second in their group and were through to the Round of 16. This is when Messi decided to show the world what he was made of. In the first round, he scored the equalizer against Colombia in what would be a dramatic late winner.

In the quarter-finals, Messi tore through Spain’s defense and scored the third in a 3-1 win. From that moment everyone started tuning in to see the Argentine youngster destroying teams with ease. Articles appeared in the newspapers about how this seventeen-year-old could be the next Maradona.

Fans didn’t have to wait long for the next Messi goal - he put Argentina ahead in the seventh minute against bitter rivals Brazil. Another dramatic last-gasp winner by Zabaleta would put Messi in the final against Nigeria. Once again, he didn’t disappoint.

Playing his heart out, Messi gave Argentina the U-20 World Cup trophy with two clean goals from the penalty spot, ending the game 2-1 against Nigeria. It was just a taste of the glory that was to come. The final, and the competition as a whole, was a total Messi masterclass.

He dragged his country right to the finish line and jumped right across it. Football fans around the world looked on and realized that they might have just watched the dawn of the greatest player history would later ever know. 2005/2006 was a big test.

The Barca manager put Messi on the right wing, giving him space to take on full-backs one-on-one and cut onto his strong left foot. Better yet, he had the chance to combine with a legendary player known for his beautiful-to-watch street football style - Ronaldinho. The stage was set for Messi to prove his worth in a top league - all he had to do was play his part.

He played it to perfection. Messi left defenders in the dust when he played. By the end of the season, he had played seventeen games in La Liga, scored six, and assisted two, a marked improvement from his last run.

But Messi was doing this during a time when the likes of R9, Beckham, and Nesta were kicking about. The media gave him props, but their focus remained on the stars. Then, Ronaldinho gave a bombshell interview.

When reporters from FourFourTwo magazine asked him about being the best player in the world, the Brazilian Ballon d’Or winner scoffed and said: “Best in the world? I’m not even the best at Barca. ” He pointed to Messi.

“He’s like my little brother here – he might be from Argentina and I’m from Brazil, but I look after him. He’s going to be excellent. ” “Excellent” was the understatement of the century.

After putting in some great performances for Argentina in the 2006 World Cup, Jose Pekerman, the manager, told him “. . .

You’re going to be the best player in the world, I see that. ” Barca loved him. Argentina loved him.

Soon, the whole planet would love him. It was this season that made Messi realize he wasn’t just great - he had the potential to reach the heights of his idol and Argentina’s most treasured icon, Diego Maradona. Maradona might as well have been a god back in Messi’s home country.

Fans and pundits were already starting to compare their two trajectories - could Messi rise to match the glory of his hero and make those comparisons come true? Would he bring the glory days back to Argentina? Messi tweaked his playstyle in the 2006/2007 season to better emulate Maradona’s skills.

He became a dribbling monster, keeping the ball so close to his feet at all times that defenders couldn’t even dream of stopping him, netting around 7 successful dribbles a game. That season, it was like the football gods wrote the perfect script for the nineteen-year-old. In a fiery El Clasico at Camp Nou, Messi showed how impactful he had become by netting a hat-trick against Real.

The game ended 3-3, meaning it might have been a slaughter had the youngster not pulled through. With his long hair flowing past him as he ran at breakneck speed, fans saw Messi play, but they dreamed of Maradona. Funnily enough, he even emulated one of Maradona’s most famous - or maybe, infamous - goals, the Hand of God.

For his second of the season, Messi pulled off a cheeky trick by tapping the ball across the line with his hand from a brilliant cross into the box. But the moment that really honoured Maradona’s legacy came in Barca’s match against Getafe. On a day that would go down in football history, Messi picked up the ball in midfield, beat two players with intricate footwork, and drove forward.

Most fans expected him to pass to a teammate, but the youngster just kept running. And running. And running.

Getafe could have sent a hundred defenders against him. That day, Messi would have dribbled past them all. After laying the entire opposing team flat on their backs, including the keeper, he slotted it away perfectly to score a goal that stunned the world.

“Ankara Messi”, it’s known as to some. But as if it were fate, the goal almost mirrored one-to-one Maradona’s legendary “Goal of the Century” from 1986. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this young man would go on to become something truly exceptional.

Messi had his teammates, his fans, and his manager behind him. Most importantly, he seemed to even have fate itself behind him. But then, something happened to Messi’s game.

His playstyle changed dramatically from the 2006/2007 season to the 2008/2009 season. A new version of the man emerged overnight, and some wondered if it was for the better, or if it would slow his growth. Who could have such a massive influence on the future GOAT?

Who took the credit, or the blame, for this transformation? There’s only one manager in the history of football who could pull off such a stunt. You guessed it right - the visionary, madman, the mastermind.

Pep Guardiola. The 2008/2009 season marked a big change in Messi’s playstyle. Pep pioneered a new hyper-offensive, free-flowing style focused on short, fluid passes.

Tiki-taka made football look like art, and when it worked, it made dreams come true. Pep is just as unbendable as a coach as a player, and in his eyes, no player is so good that they can overthrow his system. The new manager made headlines by announcing that some of the best players on the entire planet wouldn’t feature in his plans.

Pep claimed he had no use for Samuel Eto’o, a world-class striker and the greatest African player ever, or Deco, a top level midfielder. Even the beloved Ronaldinho, who wasn’t showing the dedication in training that Pep expected from his players, had to be sold to Milan. Messi understood the message immediately - the new boss meant business, and he would need to adapt his game if he wanted to stick around.

So, Messi took off his classic number 19 shirt and donned the famous Maradona number 10, ready to take on the world with a fresh new mindset. What changed? Well, a big change came off the pitch.

Guardiola was obsessed with his players’ fitness - Messi picked up a very strict diet to keep his body in top shape, reducing the number of injuries he suffered. On the pitch, Guardiola gave Messi more freedom to keep him unpredictable. He helped the team in build-up, leading the incredibly high press Pep’s teams have become known for, and became the main creative engine for the side.

Messi began threading balls through midfield, finding perfect passes that set up his teammates for incredible chances. Perhaps the biggest change came to his dribbling game. The youngster routinely left defenders in the dust with his immaculate footwork.

It became common knowledge that teams resorted to just roughing him up and fouling him just to keep up with his pace. But in Pep’s system, this kind of flashy play only left space for the opposing team to potentially get back in the game if it went wrong - completely unacceptable to the manager. Messi started cutting out the unnecessary dribbles and focused on making the system tick, becoming much more of a team player rather than a lone superstar.

The stats tell you the whole story. In his first season under Pep, Messi scored only six non-penalty goals, down from fourteen the previous year. But his assists skyrocketed.

He netted twelve assists, way up from three, and transformed into the main attacking threat for the Barca side. Messi was the glue that kept Barcelona together, and opponents just couldn’t wrap their heads around his new style. 2008/2009 was when Pep’s tiki-taka system shone through.

Barcelona scored 150 goals across the whole campaign, with Messi participating in 57, well over a third of the total. He himself scored a whopping 38, showing that the old clinical Messi who could put the ball in the back of the net from any angle was still in there. The game that encapsulates the success of this new system and the new Messi has to be the match that still makes Real Madrid fans groan to this very day when you bring it up - the 6-2 slaughter at the Bernabeu.

Even though Real took an early lead, the high press and fluid football completely smothered them. Henry and Messi both scored a brace in what would be a humiliating day for Real at home - something the fans certainly weren’t used to. By the end of the season, Messi had helped Barca not one, not two, but three trophies.

With him in the side and Pep at the wheel, the club couldn’t be stopped. Messi even scored the second goal in a clean 2-0 win over Manchester United in the Champions League final. It was clear to every football fan out there - this system was here to stay.

You might think that at this point, Messi had hit a ceiling. How on Earth could a player so talented improve? Believe it or not, that’s exactly what happened in 2009/2010.

This time around, Messi focused all his time on becoming a goal-scoring machine. He wanted to become a world class finisher, able to score from chances most mortal men couldn’t even see. Once again, Messi changed up his style.

This time, he didn’t focus so much on beating defenders one-on-one but on creating chances, becoming a master at finding space behind defensive lines with intelligent runs. By the time the ball was at his feet from a perfect pass from Xavi, Messi would only need to take one touch to put it away. As both a versatile winger and centre forward, Messi absolutely dominated, racking up 47 goals in 53 games - the same season Barcelona won the UEFA Super Cup, the Club World Cup, and the Supercopa to make a historic “sextuple”.

No game better represents this new playstyle than the Champions League quarterfinal win over Arsenal, when the Argentine put four past Arsenal in a 4-1 win at Camp Nou. Even Arsenal fans held their hands up and just said “fair play” to that one. With the 2009/2010 season wrapped up, fans were thinking, “Okay, surely Messi’s hit his ceiling now.

” And once again, he proved them wrong. 2010/2011 saw Messi take up the centre forward role more often than not, but that didn’t mean he gave up on building his creativity. In fact, he somehow managed to make those same unstoppable runs to be on the end of perfect through balls and hit those same line-breaking passes himself.

It was the year Messi evolved into a true complete forward, and he won the trophies to show it. Messi dropped even deeper than he had before, orchestrating attacks from the midfield that ended with either him smashing it into the net or creating an easy tap-in out of nothing for one of his teammates. Messi saved his dribbling for when it was truly needed, when he spotted an opening he could exploit and drive past to create a chance.

By the end of the season, he’d beaten his own record with 53 goals in 55 games, topping the La Liga goalscorer chart. As if that wasn’t enough, Messi topped the assist table, too, with a stunning 27 assists, up from 12 the year before. With another Champions League title to add to Messi’s cabinet, Ronaldo could only look on with jealousy, at this point.

Just take a look at this goal against Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final. He picks up the ball in midfield, carves through the Real defence at breakneck speed, and puts the ball away perfectly. The goal tells you everything you need to know about Messi in his prime - his youthful, energetic dribbling, his deep playmaking, and his top-level finishing all rolled into one.

But 2011/2012 proved to be the absolute peak of Messi’ career, his prime time. He refined his system to god-like levels. His finishing was perfect.

His runs were unstoppable. His first-touch was unparalleled. His free-kicks were absolutely lethal.

Messi could play both as a false nine and drift out wide to create space. The golden boy had become a golden man the previous season. Now, he was a golden god.

This season, the Argentine smashed records fans believed would never be broken. First, he won his third Ballon d’Or, becoming the fourth player in history to do so. Second, Messi became the top scorer in the Champions League for the fourth year on the trot - the first to do so.

Then, he overtook the legendary Cesar Rodriguez’s to become Barcelona’s all-time top goalscorer. Cesar had held the record for 57 years, netting 232 goals and 53 assists across his career for the club. Messi beat that when he was only twenty-four.

In total, Messi scored 73 goals and earned 32 assists in 60 matches. You heard that right. It’s a tally that might never be surpassed.

Of Barcelona’s 186 goals that season, he took part in 56% of them, well over half. If you turned on the telly and saw that Barca had scored a goal, the odds were good that Messi had been involved in some way. But it becomes even crazier when you look at Messi’s stats not by season, but by calendar year.

From January 2012 to December 2012, he put away an unreal 91 goals, destroying the previous record and making football history. Was it a shock to anyone, except perhaps Ronaldo, that he won the Ballon d’Or that year, and became the very first to win four Ballons d’Or? Messi kept the engine running for 2012/2013.

His influence on the team became so important that when he had to be left out of the side due to injury, Barcelona often suffered heavy losses. Messi had become not just the beating heart of the team, but its backbone, core, and brain. Messi was Barcelona.

This bears out in the stats, too. That season, he opened the scoresheet 21 times and put away 15 goals that would ultimately win Barca the game. After scoring 19 consecutive times in the league, setting another world record, it became clear to everyone that Messi was carrying the team entirely on his back.

He shifted his playstyle to be more mature as a result, focusing on impact rather than flair and cutting down his dribbles. After all, he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes - not that he really ever made them at all. The 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 seasons really were the peak of Lionel Messi.

His highs were already far greater than most players, but his peak years were just sensational. Nobody could believe what they were seeing at the time. But not even the GOAT can escape the dread of all footballers - injuries.

The strain of carrying Barcelona for two years on the trot took its toll. The next season could prove make or break for Messi’s career, and thus, his legacy. 2013/2014 wasn’t an easy year for Messi.

He’d suffered some drawbacks from injuries towards the end of the previous season, but they really hit hard at that point. Barcelona brought in Neymar, the hot Brazilian prospect, so fans were content, but they still worried about their talisman player. We’ve seen injuries bring down even some of the most legendary players of all time.

Marco van Basten tragically had to cut his career short due to ankle issues, despite being one of the best strikers of all time. If Messi didn’t manage his recovery well, it might just be the greatest tragedy in all of football history. The Argentine had a choice - double down and keep pressing on despite the physical pain, pushing his body to the limit, or humble himself and switch up his playstyle.

Messi was no fool, and knew that he wasn’t invincible. Rather than keep up his unreal pace from before, he changed his approach to be less physically demanding, focusing on his positioning and finishing above all else. By the end of the season, Messi had scored just 41 goals across all competitions.

For most, that would be an unbelievable season - for Messi, it was disappointing. Which isn’t to say he didn’t play a vital part of the Barcelona attack, but the era of the “Messidependencia” seemed over. Messi’s dribbling game suffered, which had been such an integral part of his playstyle when he first started his career.

Still, his quality shone through now and then. In a passionate El Clasico fixture at the Bernabeu, Messi pulled his socks up and scored a hat-trick to give Barcelona an unforgettable win in their archrivals’ back garden. The lesson was learned - even when Messi’s at rock bottom, he’s still head and shoulders above the rest of us.

The next season marked the beginning of an era fans look back on as maybe the golden years of attacking football. Luis Suarez arrived at Barcelona from Liverpool to form the unstoppable, legendary trio of Messi, Suarez, and Neymar - better known as MSN. This partnership rocked the world, and Messi was the key that made everything click into place - only the BBC trio of Benzema, Bale, and CR7 could rival them.

The dud season the year before gave rival fans a glimmer of hope that the Argentine might be on the decline, but Messi squashed that hope very quickly in 2014/2015. With Suarez down the middle, Messi switched effortlessly from deep-lying playmaking midfielder to an out-an-out striker. His dribbling returned to full strength, but he kept his team-play mentality in the back of his mind, making him an unpredictable threat.

Would he smash the ball past your keeper, drive past your entire defence, or lay a through-ball right between your defenders? No one knew. That’s what made him so terrifying.

The stats for this period are just ridiculous. The MSN trio scored 122 goals in total, a record for a trio in Spain’s history. Messi alone put away 57 and assisted 31 in 58 games, making him the all-time La Liga top scorer, destroying Telmo Zarra’s 59-year-old record.

To top off this glorious campaign, Barcelona took him another treble - the league title, the Champions League, and the Copa del Rey. It was the perfect end for MSN, arguably the best attacking trio the world has ever seen. The question was - could they keep up this blistering pace?

2015/2016 didn’t disappoint. Messi missed two months due to a nasty knee injury, but by the time the El Clasico fixture rolled around, he was as fit as a fiddle. Real supporters groaned as he made his way back onto the pitch and, as usual, scored a lovely goal in a 4-0 thrashing to Barcelona.

The rest of the season, Messi played like a maestro, controlling the tempo of the game from midfield. He would connect with Iniesta in midfield and then run back up to bring the ball to his two lethal attacking colleagues, breaking lines and leaving defenders on their backs. MSN broke the record again with 131 goals across all comps, due in large part to Messi’s brilliance.

This season, he spent hours on the training ground perfecting his free-kicks. And it paid off. In the Super Cup final against Sevilla, Messi scored an amazing free-kick to help Barca on the way to victory, sending the ball flying right up into the corner of the goal.

As if the man wasn’t good enough, Messi also scored in the 2-0 final victory over Sevilla to win the Copa del Rey. Sevilla fans still have nightmares about the man. 2016/2017 was strange.

For Barcelona, the season was a bit of a letdown. They failed to win the league, giving their rivals Real the title instead, and their Champions League campaign also ended on a sour note when Atletico Madrid, of all clubs, knocked them out in the quarter-finals To add insult to injury, Real would go on to lift the European title at the end of the day, too. But it’s also the season that held some of the most unforgettable Messi moments of all time.

He cemented himself as the go-to clutch player for Barcelona, pulling them back from the brink of defeat at the very last moment. Messi scored 37 league goals by the end of the campaign, but not all goals are created equal - a few really stick out. In the Copa del Rey final, he scored and provided an assist in a 3-1 win over Alavés to give Barcelona their third Copa del Rey trophy on the bounce.

It never pays to bet against Messi scoring in a final. Next, Messi put away a last-gasp dramatic winner from the edge of the box in a 3-2 victory at the Bernabeu. Real players had been hacking him down the whole game, so when he scored the winner, Messi ran to the corner, took off his shirt, and lifted it up high to remind Madrid fans who owned their city.

And finally came his performance in the most incredible Champions League match of all time - La Remontada. Let’s set the scene a little. It’s the Round of 16 of the Champions League.

Barcelona are in a slump, and they head to Paris to face off against PSG. They came back from the French capital with their tails between their legs - Barcelona, the team that had won the treble the year before, had lost 4-0. How on Earth could any players, even MSN, overturn such a massive defeat?

No team in the history of the game had ever overcome a 4-0 loss in the second leg. Fans rolled their eyes and said it was over before the ref even blew the whistle. Barcelona started off well, though, with Suarez scoring a very shaky goal in the third minute.

The Barca fans cheered, but the PSG fans didn’t break a sweat. “That’s one down and four more to go”, they thought. “Good luck.

” In the 40th minute, a Kurzawa own goal gave Barcelona a 2-0 lead. “Okay,” thought the PSG supporters. “But those goals were flukes.

We’ll score eventually, and then they’re finished. ” But only five minutes into the second half, an utterly ridiculous tumble in the box by a PSG defender brought Neymar down, giving Barcelona a penalty. No prizes for guessing who took it.

Cool as ice, Messi stepped up to the spot and smashed the ball into the left side of the net. Nobody else could have done better. The crowd went ballistic.

PSG fans started chewing their nails. Only one goal separated them, now. Surely there was no way they could bottle a 4-0 lead like this?

Relief came to the Parisians when Cavani caught a volley beautifully and sent the ball into the Barca goal, giving them a much-needed two goal margin over their opponents. The comeback seemed to have been cut short. Twenty minutes passed, and the score remained 3-5 on aggregate.

Then, the unthinkable came to be. First, Neymar hit the ball so perfectly from a free kick that it flew right into the corner of the PSG goal. The Barca fans leapt to their feet, but it would still take a miracle for them to go level with only a few minutes left to go.

But they had better than a miracle - they had Messi. The main man lobbed the ball into the box from midfield. It came sailing down, right on top of Suarez, one of the most clinical strikers of all time.

The PSG defence had no choice but to take him down, giving Barcelona a penalty in the 90th minute. Neymar stepped up to the spot. The crowd watched on with their hands over their eyes.

The weight of everyone’s hopes rested on his shoulders. The sheer terror would kill most men right there on the spot. But Messi’s ice cold demeanour had spread to the rest of the team.

The Brazilian put it away to make it 5-5 on aggregate. Game on. With seconds ticking down on the full-time clock, Barcelona had to score once to make it to the next round.

Then, Neymar sent a perfect ball over the PSG defense, and Roberto caught it just right to send it into the goal. 6-1 to Barcelona, 6-5 on aggregate. The night came to be known as La Remontada, the comeback of all comebacks, with Messi playing a crucial role in the fairytale story with his decisive moments and clutch finesse.

The following 2017/2018 season brought about the end of the MSN trio, as Neymar left to join PSG - the same club he had humiliated only months before. Once again, Messi would have to adapt his playstyle to fit this new situation. And this is where an insane stat comes to light.

Messi transitioned into a total playmaking forward, stringing passes together and finding tight spaces to attack, all while keeping his lethal finishing. He became a true leader of Barcelona, able to dictate the flow of games no matter how poorly his team was performing. This new version of Messi, the icy mastermind, proved invaluable in La Liga.

Not only did Barcelona win the title with just one defeat shy of an invincible run, Messi took home the European Golden Shoe thanks to his 34-goal tally in the league. He also scored in Barcelona’s powerful 5-0 win in the Copa del Rey final. Against who?

You guessed it - poor Sevilla. Again. Throw on top of that Messi’s incredible free-kicks and you have this player that can’t seem to do any wrong.

But someone brought up a stat that shocked people to their core - Messi was the player who ran the least of all Champions League players in the competition, except for Eric Baily - a defender. “How on Earth is that possible? ”, people thought.

Players who didn’t run are typically seen as lazy or unmotivated. They weren’t typically the best player of all time! Then, pundits started piecing it together.

Rather than run all over the pitch 24/7, Messi knew that he had to conserve his energy and find the right moment to strike. He could read the game more clearly, and direct his team forward by slowing down. And right when the opposing team was least expecting it, Messi would charge forward with the ball, destroy a tired defender, and slot it away.

Players who don’t run are often compared to slugs. Messi was like a viper hiding in the grass, carefully waiting for the perfect moment to strike, fangs baring, and take down his prey. This “Mastermind Messi” didn’t have the same flair as older versions, but he was just as lethal.

What makes Messi so special, beyond his godlike dribbling, perfect passes, and ability to read the game in a way nobody else can, is his adaptability. It’s not an aspect of his game that’s brought up very often when people talk about the GOAT, but it’s just as important to his dominance as any other part of his impressive portfolio. Managers know when they’re facing off against a team that there are some players they have to keep quiet in order to win.

If they have a pacy winger who can beat any defender, you make sure they’re doubled up on at all times. If they have a playmaking midfielder who can break lines with just one pass, you close him down and deny him space. If they have a ball-carrying, deep-lying midfielder who can take the ball from one box to the other at breakneck speed, you press him down.

Things become difficult when a team has more than one player to shut down. So, imagine the horror a manager feels when he realises he’s facing Messi, who’s not only the best in each of those positions, but can switch between them seamlessly from one game to the next - sometimes in the same game! Were you facing the young dribble-master Messi, the ice-cold Mastermind Messi, or the goal machine finishing Messi?

That question kept them up at night. Messi defies everything we know about football. “Pro footballers need to be big and strong,” conventional wisdom tells us.

“They need to pick a position and stick to it to improve. ” That’s likely what the coaches told Messi when he was growing up - so he proved them all wrong, and became the greatest of all time. In 2021, a glorious era of football finally came to an end.

Messi announced with tears in his eyes that he would be leaving Barcelona. In the past few years leading up to the announcement, he had worked on refining his game as an assist demon, creating opportunities for the new stars to shine. Messi was like a grizzled veteran at this point.

He remembered how, when he was just starting out at Barcelona, the veteran players had helped him grow in confidence. Now the GOAT and hero of millions, Messi did the same for the young Argentine players in the national team. After all, there were still two trophies missing from his cabinet before he could finish up for good.

First, Messi took the Argentina team by the scruff of the neck and used his undying winning mentality to drag them over the finish line. Argentina won the Copa America not only against Brazil, but in Brazil’s backyard - a feat many Argentines still bring up to vex their Brazilian neighbours. And finally, the ultimate moment of glory.

2022. A night nobody who watched the World Cup final would ever forget. Facing off against France, he showed unbelievable tenacity, strength, and leadership.

Scoring two goals and his penalty in the shootouts after a gruelling 3-3 battle against France, Argentina finally took home the World Cup after so many years of pain. Messi held the trophy high up in the air. The fans lifted him up on their shoulders, just as they had done with Maradona.

Messi cemented his legacy that night. He had not just matched his childhood hero - he had far surpassed him. He became the Greatest of All Time - all while taking a leisurely stroll.

If you want to follow the story of the player who was the best footballer but then disappeared, check out our video here.