According to a recent article from Henry Winter in The Times, Manchester United’s academy dressing room proudly displays an image of Lionel Messi cleaning his own boots following a 2016 friendly between Argentina and Croatia at the old Boleyn Ground in London.
Here's the aformentioned image.
Nutmegs are among the most brutal ways for a footballer to humiliate an opponent. Something about the act of a football going in between a footballer's legs and geting collected on the other side can leave one drained of one's will to live. The following videos are of nutmegs so ruthless we highly doubt any of the players on the receiving end have ever been seen again.
This is like one of those Oscars "In Memoriam" montages but for footballers.
(Sad piano music plays)
Over the years, we have been privileged enough to see some unforgettable Lionel Messi comebacks.
The Argentinean star has lead both his club FC Barcelona and Argentina to some epic turnovers that nobody even dared to dream of.
There is something about comebacks. They're just so dramatic, so nerve wrecking.
There is simply nothing better than overcoming all the odds and a hefty deficit to make the taste of glory even sweeter.
Here is a compilation of Messi's greatest comebacks in his career playing for club and country.
You have to feel a little bad for Leganes. No one was going to stop Lionel Messi on Saturday. You also have to feel bad for anyone who doesn’t like Ray Hudson, because he was in full form as well. Barcelona inched closer to the LaLiga title with a 3-1 win over Leganes at the Camp Nou thanks to a Lionel Messi hat trick.
The Blaugrana moved 12 points above Atletico Madrid, which plays rival Real Madrid on Sunday.
Poor Leganes tried everything to slow Messi down, but, as is often the case, it was just Messi’s day.
A few weeks ago, Lionel Messi reached the landmark of 100 goals in the UEFA Champions League, joining Cristiano Ronaldo as the only footballer to achieve the feat. The following comparisons between the two were inevitable, because for the last 10 years, it’s just been Ronaldo and Messi at the top of the world’s premier club competition.
In fact, you’d have to go back to the 2006-07 season and AC Milan’s Kaká to find the last Champions League top scorer by season not named Ronaldo or Messi.
At around the same time that Zlatan Ibrahimovic made his MLS debut for the LA Galaxy on Saturday, scoring a late equalizer and then game-winner in dramatic fashion, another football icon made a late entrance and saved the day. In this case, the player was Lionel Messi and the circumstance was a two-goal deficit against Sevilla, an unbeaten season on the line.