Lionel
Messi started playing football at a very early age in his hometown's Newell's
Old Boys. From the age of 11, he suffered from a hormone deficiency and as
Lionel's parents were unable to pay for the treatment in Argentina, they decided to move to Barcelona, Spain.
Lionel Messi Career
Messi's parents, Jorge and Ceclia, decided on a regimen of nightly growth-hormone injections for their son, though it soon proved impossible to pay several hundred dollars per month for the medication. So, at the age of 13, when Messi was offered the chance to train at soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona's youth academy, La Masia, and have his medical bills covered by the team, Messi's family picked up and moved across the Atlantic to make a new home in Spain.
Messi is also captain of the Argentina
national and has played in two World Cups (2006 and 2010) and two Copa Americas
(2007 and 2011). In the summer of 2008 he also played at the Beijing Olympics, and came home with a gold
medal.
