The Greatest Ever!!!?

Lionel Messi at an age of 25 created history which looks hard to get repeated when he won the 4th consecutive award of Ballon d'Or. The award is regarded as the most prestigious in football. It was first created in 1956 by a French magazine and later merged with FIFA's World Player of the Year in 2010. Messi became the first ever player to win it four times which makes him one of the best or may be the best footballer that ever played.

Messi set a record of scoring 91 goals for his Spanish club Barcelona and country Argentina in a single calendar year including five hatricks and five goals scored in a single match. Before him the record was held by a German footballer Gerd Mueller for 40 years who had scored 85 goals in just 60 matches. Unfortunately, Messi's magical run of goals couldn't help his Barcelona team to win a Spanish League or Champions League in 2012.

Messi was born in Argentina to a steel worker and a part-time cleaner  in the city of Rosario. In childhood he was handicapped from growth hormone deficiency. He left Argentina at 13, though he was a child prodigy but his size was a major drawback, his height was below the third percentile of his age. When Messi's parents and the local club could no longer afford the $1,000-a-month hormone treatment to rectify his childhood deficiency, FC Barcelona agreed to recruit him and bear the expenses.

Messi, who is loved among football fans across the globe is disliked in his own country. His country see him more of a Catalonian (region, whose capital is Barcelona) than their own. Many Argentines find it hard to relate to Messi who has played his entire professional career abroad. To add insult to injury, Messi is not able to convert his club glory for his national team.

Some of the giants of the game consider him the greatest footballer ever lived but their claims could only be proved once he helps his country Argentina to achieve the biggest glory of all, to lift the Football World Cup.