AN EIGHT-TIME FIFA MEN’S BEST PLAYER AWARD WINNER AND CREDITED WITH BRINGING THE GLOBAL SOCCER CRAZE TO AMERICA WHEN HE SIGNED WITH INTER MIAMI, LIONEL MESSI OVERCAME AN ARDUOUS ROAD TO BECOME ONE OF THE GREATEST TO EVER TAKE THE FIELD

BY DAN SALAMONE

When Jorge, a factory worker in Rosario, Argentina, and Celia, his pregnant wife, woke up on June 24, 1987, they had no idea they were about to welcome a son who would take the soccer (or football, for the purists) world by storm, then dominate the sport across three different decades. The list of Lionel Messi’s accolades goes on for miles (or 8,500 words on Wikipedia, to be exact), but even more impressive was his journey, overcoming childhood health issues to become FIFA’s most awarded player and one of the greatest athletes to ever take the field.

By age 4, Messi was already skilled enough to join the local Grandoli soccer club, and by 6, he joined the prestigious Newell’s Old Boys club, scoring more than 500 goals over the next six years. All signs pointed to a bright future in the sport, then at 11 years old, Messi was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency. To maintain his position with the club, Messi required treatments that cost nearly $1,000 per month, more than half of the average household income in Argentina at the time. When his father’s health insurance expired, Newell’s ownership promised to pay for the treatments, then reneged on that oath, leaving young Messi too sick to play for the club. Fortunately, a scout for Barcelona FC discovered him at age 14, and covered the cost of his hormone treatments, paving the way for a flourishing career across three professional clubs, Spain’s FC Barcelona, France’s Paris Saint Germain (PSG), and most recently, USA’s Inter Miami, nabbing a laundry list of honors that includes eight Ballon d’Or awards and three Best FIFA Men’s Player awards. But amid his astounding success, Messi never lost sight of his roots. At 20, he became an ambassador for the United National Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a nonprofit devoted to providing humanitarian and developmental aid to underprivileged children worldwide, and that same year, he traveled to Haiti six months after the devastating earthquake of 2010 to highlight the challenges facing the country’s most vulnerable population children.

In 2007, inspired by a trip to a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where he came face-to-face with terminally ill children, the soccer star launched the Lionel Messi Foundation. “After having visited a hospital one day, I realized the special significance that a public figure has,” he said. “I understood that seeing a well-known footballer could really help those ill children.” Since its founding, the foundation has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to provide food, healthcare, and education for sick and economically underserved children worldwide.

Lionel Messi

@leomessi