But even with those accolades, Messi is still that same short kid who turned up at La Masia and made jaws drop. When Lionel Messi arrived at La Masia as a young teenager, he was small, reserved and had jaw-dropping talent. Maybe not much has changed since those early chapters on FC Barcelona's famed academy campus.

In 2010, La Masia became the first youth academy to have trained all three finalists for the Ballon d'Or in a single year: Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi. La Masia is also the name of FC Barcelona's football training facilities, originally located near the Camp Nou in the Les Corts district of Barcelona.

Messi is from Rosario, Argentina, and didn’t come to La Masia until the age of 13. He spent three years there, in a little farmhouse cocoon, before emerging as the greatest footballer the world has ever seen. Might try and figure out how to get a kid enrolled in La Masia and start Project Messi now.

Over the decades, dozens of Barca greats passed through, including Pep Guardiola, Carles Puyol, Victor Valdes and Andres Iniesta. Barca’s academy also produced Xavi and Lionel Messi, but they did not stay at La Masia (though they went there for meals with their team-mates every day after school).