Lionel Andres Messi is an Argentine footballer who plays for Barcelona FC in spain as an attacker and also has captaincy for his national team. Remarkably by a very young age of just 21 Messi revieved his first Ballon D'Or award along with FIFA player of the year awards. This first Ballon D'or award would start of a run of 4 consecutive years (2009,2010,2011 and 2012). He has broke multiple records with him beating the all time goal scoring record in a calendar year with a total of 91 goals surpassing football legends of such as Pele and Gerd Muller.

 

Messi's style of play has been compared to that of the well known Diego Maradonna also an argentine national and a legend of the game. Despite lacking the height of most players this more than has it's advantages allowing them to possess a lower centering gravity making them more agile and able to change direction much quicker than your average football player. Messi has short yet powerful legs which give him a frightening burst over speed over the first few metres but he also has the ability to sprint long distances at a very fast pace especially with the ball at his feet, running at almost full speed Messi is capable to keeping the ball very close to himself whilst dribbling which makes it so difficult for oppostion players to take the ball off him. It's almost as if the ball is glued to his feet while his is dribbling, many great players have been recognised for their excellent ball control and touch but in my opinion none come close to the ball control of Messi. One thing I must mention about his way of playing the game is that he plays the game fairly and out of pure enjoyment, always with a smile on his face and rarely if ever reacts badly to poor tackles on him which are a very occuring thing due to opponents frustration at his mind-blowing ability. A demonstration of his fair play and love of the game can be seen in Adidas's new advert starring Messi himself which I have posted the link of below entitled PLAY THE MESSI WAY sending out a signal to all young aspiring football players that this is how the game should most definitely be played. "WE'RE KEEPING THE GAME BEAUTIFUL".. the video shows all the ways in which to keep the sport as exciting as possible for spectators as well as for the players themselves, no-one wants to see players cheating the ref and Messi promotes keeping the game beautiful.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9zjwmDHE3Y - "PLAY THE MESSI WAY"

 

To conclude in my opinion Lionel Messi is the greatest player to ever bless the game of football achieving so much at such a young age.

 

Created By "Nicholas Garrity".