Lionel Messi is 28 years old.
Depending on when you became a fan of soccer, that will strike you in a certain way. If you fell in love with the game around 2005 or 2006, you will probably not be able to believe your ears. “I remember when he played with Ronaldinho!” you’ll say — as in back when Ronaldinho was good. Yeah, that long ago — he has aged quite a lot in that time. He’s a man now, not a boy, not even a young man.
If you became a soccer fan right around the time FIFA 10 exploded in popularity, your reaction probably went a little something like, “damn, he doesn’t have much time left, does he?” Which is an understandable thing to say. After all, you have only been able to appreciate his brilliance for the past 5 years, less than half of his career so far.
Either way, everyone could do with some good, old fashioned Messi magic, and I have a feeling that is why FC Barcelona released some archived footage of a 16-year-old Messi on his 28th birthday. It’s either that, or they wanted to remind us all one more time just how much better Messi was at as a 16-year-old than we were at any point in our lives. However, Barcelona doesn’t seem to be the petty type.
Check out the footage here, and don’t worry, we have at least another 4 years to watch Lionel Messi wreck s***.
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