Messi gets his kicks in style

Every so often football unearths a talent of immense proportions and, in the prodigious Argentinian Lionel Messi, FC Barcelona have one of them.

Respected team-mate
Messi may only be 18, but he is already performing at the same rarefied level as Barça team-mate Ronaldinho. The Argentinian knows how lucky he has been to play alongside this particular superstar. Other big names might have pulled rank on the wonderkid. "Ronnie has been massively important for me," Messi told Champions magazine. "I was so young [16] when I started to come into Barcelona's dressing room, but he made a point of being first to step up to me and look after me. There was no jealousy at all - quite the opposite. Ronaldinho led the way."

'For the joy'
He added: "There's a 'Brazilian' table at Barça meal times and they often make me sit with them, but they always tell me I'm the only Argentinian they'll ever allow to join them! I try to copy little things Ronaldinho does and, more fundamentally, I just try to play for the joy of it. "All my life I've worked on this ability to dribble past or get away from players who are marking me or who are trying to tackle me," he added. "Really, I've been like this from the first moment I picked up a football."

Foul magnet
It is a style, as Ronaldinho has pointed out, that leaves Messi perpetually chopped to the ground but he has become used to such treatment. "I've always had this ability to get up and get on with it," he said. "Long ago, I made up my mind that the fact people try to kick you and foul you comes with the territory if you play the way I do."

Hormone treatment
Messi left Santa Fe six years ago in search of fame, fortune and height. When he attracted big clubs in Argentina it was discovered he lacked a growth hormone and that was the reason why, aged 13, he was still barely 1.43m tall. The €1,000 a month treatment he needed ruined the family budget. But after an intense period of pulling favours from family and friends, Barcelona were alerted to his talent, and physiological handicap, and offered him a trial.

Tearful farewell
Messi will never forget the drama of February 2000. "Everyone came out to say goodbye. My parents and my two brothers and sister were all getting ready to go in a taxi to the airport and every one of us was crying our eyes out. Everyone had told me Barcelona would look after us, but I was worried in case it was a lie. When we got to Camp Nou it was so impressive we had to pinch ourselves to believe it."

Barça debt
Messi now feels he is indebted to the club, who took on his medical treatment and the injections Messi had to have every day for three years. "I couldn't let myself feel the pain," he said. "Even if I had, I could not have let it show in front of my new club. I owe Barcelona everything."

This is an edited version of an article that appears in issue 16 of Champions, the official magazine of the UEFA Champions League. Click here to subscribe.