Mar. 2,2023.
According to the police, gunmen in Argentina's third-largest city opened fire on a supermarket owned by Lionel Messi's in-laws after leaving a threatening message for him.
Feb. 20,2023.
After voting for Lionel Messi, Real Madrid defender David Alaba received racial abuse on social media, and Croatia coach Zlatko Dali has accused FIFA of disrespect following the soccer body's annual awards ceremony.
Summary:
Lionel Messi
Messi began playing football when he was a young boy, and in 1995, he joined the youth team of Newell's Old Boys, a top-division football club in Rosario. The prestigious clubs on both sides of the Atlantic were drawn to Messi because of his extraordinary abilities. Messi began playing for FC Barcelona's under-14 team when he was 13 and moved there with his family. He played 14 games for the junior team and scored 21 goals. He quickly moved up to higher-level teams and made his informal debut with FC Barcelona in a friendly match at the age of 16.
Club play.
In the 2004-05 season Messi, then 17, turned into the most youthful authority player and objective scorer in the Spanish La Liga (the country's most noteworthy division of football). He was strong, well-balanced, and versatile on the field despite being only 5 feet 7 inches (1.7 meters) tall and weighing 148 pounds (67 kilograms). Messi was a skilled pass distributor who was quick, precise, and naturally left-footed when in control of the ball. He could easily weave his way through crowded defenses. In 2005 he was allowed Spanish citizenship, an honor welcomed with blended sentiments by the furiously Catalan allies of Barcelona. The Champions League, or European club championship, was won by Messi and Barcelona the following year.
By 2008, Messi was one of the world's most dominant players and finished second to Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo in the voting for the 2008 Ballon d'Or. His play continued to rapidly improve over the years. Messi helped FC Barcelona win the club's first "treble," which means winning three major European club titles in one season, at the beginning of 2009, concluding a sensational 2008–09 season: The team won the Champions League, Copa del Rey, which is Spain's major domestic cup, and La Liga. He beat Ronaldo in the balloting for the Ballon d'Or and FIFA's world player of the year by a record margin, scoring 38 goals in 51 games that season. Messi scored 34 goals in domestic games during Barcelona's 2009–10 La Liga championship run. As Europe's leading scorer, he won the Golden Shoe and a second Ballon d'Or (previously known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or from 2010 to 2015).
The following season, Messi led Barcelona to La Liga and Champions League titles, which helped him win the world player of the year award for the unprecedented third time in a row. When he scored his 233rd goal for Barcelona in March 2012, he became the club's all-time leading La Liga goal scorer at the age of 24. He broke Gerd Müller's 39-year-old record for single-season goals in a major European football league by scoring 73 goals in all competitions during Barcelona's 2011–12 season, which included another Copa del Rey victory. Messi became the first player to win the world player of the year award four times thanks to his historic season in 2012. His 46 La Liga goals led the league in 2012–13, when Barcelona won another domestic top-division title. When he scored his 370th goal for Barcelona in 2014, he set a Barcelona record for all-time goals scored. He also broke the record for career goals scored in both the Champions League (with 72 goals) and La Liga (with 253 goals) in the same year.
During the 2014–15 season, Messi led Barcelona to another treble, leading the team with 43 goals scored. This earned him his fifth award as world player of the year. During the 2015–16 season, when Barcelona won both the Copa del Rey and La Liga, he scored 41 goals across all competitions. In 2016–17, Messi scored 53 goals for Barcelona, leading the team to a second Copa del Rey championship. He scored 45 goals between 2017 and 2018, helping Barcelona win the La Liga and Copa del Rey double. In 2018–19, Messi scored 51 goals in all domestic competitions for Barcelona, which won another La Liga title. He was named FIFA's best male player of the year at the end of 2019 and won his sixth Ballon d'Or in his career. Barcelona won the Copa del Rey for the seventh time in Messi's career during the 2020–21 season. In 2021, he became a free agent, but he was largely unable to re-sign with Barcelona due to financial issues, some of which were caused by La Liga rules. He was a club record breaker when he left; notably, he held the record for most goals scored by a league player (474). Messi signed with Paris St.-Germain later in 2021, joining superstars Kylian Mbappé and Neymar. That same year, he also won a second Ballon d'Or.
International career.
In spite of his double citizenship and expert progress in Spain, Messi's binds with his country stayed solid, and he was a vital individual from different Argentine public groups from 2005. He was a member of Argentina's team that won the FIFA World Youth Championship in 2005, represented Argentina at the World Cup in 2006, and scored two goals in five games as Argentina won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Messi assisted Argentina with arriving at the 2010 World Cup quarterfinals, where the group was wiped out by Germany for the second sequential time in World Cup play. Messi put on a stunning performance at the 2014 World Cup, scoring four goals and almost entirely guiding an Argentina team that lacked offense through the group stage and into the knockout rounds. Argentina then reached the World Cup final for the first time in 24 years. Argentina lost that match to Germany by a score of 1–0, but Messi still took home the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player. He scored his 55th international goal in the 2016 Copa América Centenario tournament, breaking Gabriel Batistuta's Argentine scoring record.
Messi was one of the world's biggest athletes off the field. He was a highly successful product pitchman, particularly for the sportswear company Adidas, in addition to earning a football salary that frequently ranked alongside that of Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the two athletes with salaries that were the highest in all professional sports. In 2013, Messi and his father, who was in charge of his son's finances, were accused of tax fraud for using offshore shell companies to evade paying €4.2 million in Spanish taxes on endorsement earnings. In spite of having paid the Spanish government €5 million, the two were still required to stand trial in 2016. In July of that year, Messi and his father received fines of €2 million and €1.5 million, respectively, in addition to 21-month suspended prison sentences (first-time offenders in Spain receive suspended sentences if the duration is less than two years).