Lionel Messi said it makes him proud when people say he is the best soccer player in history. In an interview released by Barcelona where the superstar took questions from young players of Barcelona's highly regarded academy La Masia, Messi spoke about his past, what winning five Ballon d'Or awards mean and more. Take a look.
Here are some of the best tidbits from the interview:
- When asked where his fifth Ballon d'Or is, he said, "I kept it at home, where the others are. We made room for it with the other four."
- Messi was asked about who taught him to play. "I'm not sure," Messi said. "When I was little, I started kicking the ball at three of four years of age ... I have an older brother who played, but I got into it myself. I joined a team and learned a few things, but since I was little I liked it."
- The star was asked about leaving Argentina for Barca, and the adjustment that it took as a young teenager. "It was hard because it was a big change," Messi said. "I left a lot of things behind. It was hard because, like with a lot of the kids at La Masia, I couldn't see my family much ... I saw them once a year, twice a year. It was tough."
- Messi was also asked about if he dreamed about becoming the best player ever. "No, honestly, no. When I got here, I came with the dream of possibly getting into the first team, to become a professional, but I never imaged everything that I lived after that," Messi said.
Nicely done by the young players, providing us with some fantastic insight from Messi thanks to their questions. If that soccer career doesn't work out, there could be a future in reporting for the youngsters. I think they would prefer the former, though.
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