Lionel Andrés Messi (born June 24, 1987 in Rosario) is an Argentine football (soccer) player. Messi is a great player how plays football for a club in Spain called Barcelona . He also played for that team since he was 11 . He’s nationality is Argentina and he used to live there . he was too talented when he was young that’s why many teams needed a player like him thinking of what he could be in the future but most of these teams wasn’t in Argentina so he couldn’t go .
Messi had a problem . He was so short so his family was giving him shots to increase his ability of growth but this shots was very expensive and his family couldn’t pay any more so they went to the club that Messi was playing in it ( Newell’s Old Boys ) and they sat with the club owner and said to him : if you want Messi to play with your team you must pay for his shots but the owner said no . After that they decided to move from Argentina to Spain . In the 2003-2004 season, when he was still only 16, Messi made his first team debut in a friendly with Porto that marked the opening of the new Dragao stadium. The following championship-winning season, Messi made his first appearance in an official match on October 16, 2004, in Barcelona 's derby win against Espanyol at the Olympic Stadium (0-1). With several first team players seriously injured, the services of several reserve team players were called upon, and Messi became a regular feature of Barça squads. On May 1, 2005, he became the youngest player ever to score a league goal for FC Barcelona - against Albacete when Messi was only 17 years, 10 months and 7 days old.
He was offered the chance to play for the Spain national football team, but declined, preferring to wait for the opportunity to play for the country of his birth. In June 2004 he got his chance, playing in a U-20 friendly match against Paraguay.
Lionel Messi wearing FC Barcelona 's colors . In June 2005 he starred for the Argentina U-20 team that won the Football World