5 interesting facts about Messi’s childhood you probably didn’t know

We all know Lionel Messi as the man who has spent two decades making the world's best defenders look completely lost.

Eight Ballon d'Or awards, a World Cup — a career so absurd, it stopped feeling real.

But on the 24th June, when Messi turns another year older, it's worth remembering that before all of this, he was a small, quiet boy from Rosario who almost didn't make it at all.

Here are five things about his childhood that most people don't know.

His grandmother got him his first chance

At five, Messi was too small for his local club Grandoli. The coach said no. His grandmother Celia walked straight up to the coach and convinced him to put Leo on the pitch. She was the one by Messi’s side at every training and at every game.

Every time Messi scores today, he points to the sky. That's who he's pointing at. She died when he was ten.

Barcelona paid for his medical treatment just to sign him

At ten, doctors found Messi had a growth hormone deficiency. Treatment cost 500 euros a month, money his family didn't have. Argentinian club, River Plate looked at him and passed, specifically because they wouldn't cover the bill.

Barcelona flew him over, watched him play, and agreed to pay everything. The condition was simple. The whole family had to move to Spain.

The contract was written on a napkin

Barcelona's sporting director Carles Rexach was so worried about losing Messi to another club that during a lunch meeting, with no formal papers around, he grabbed a napkin and wrote the agreement on it.

That napkin, scribbled on at a restaurant table in 2000, sold at auction in 2024 for $965,000.

His teammates thought he couldn't speak

When Messi arrived at Barcelona’s Academy, La Masia, at 13, his parents returned to Argentina and he was left largely alone.

He couldn't speak Catalan, barely said a word in the dressing room, and his teammates genuinely believed he was mute. He cried himself to sleep for months. The boy his coaches described as the most gifted they'd ever seen was sitting quietly in a corner, saying nothing.

He scored nearly 500 goals before he turned 13

At Newell's Old Boys in Rosario, Messi was so prolific that opposition coaches would complain before matches, insisting a boy that small couldn't possibly be the age on the registration form.

By the time Barcelona came for him, he had scored close to 500 goals in youth football. He was eight when they made him the team's penalty taker.

Messi's story could have ended at almost every chapter. A coach who said no. A family that couldn't afford medicine. A club that passed over 500 euros. A 13-year-old crying alone in a foreign city.

None of it stopped him, which shows the type of strength and determination fans love him for.