Messi's tourist circuit in Rosario

Having already been called Rosario's ambassador to the world, it is very clear that Messi is a popular figure in Rosario. So much so, that in November of 2019 a tourist circuit opened up detailing his childhood places when he was in Rosario.

It's made out of ten places where Messi used to spend his time, which go hand in hand with with stories, anecdotes, images and audiovisuals, where the Rosario Turismo app presents a journey through Messi's childhood neighborhood, his school, the 'potreros', his first clubs (Grandoli and Newell's) and even the place where he met Antonella Roccuzzo, his wife.

The places are the following:

Santa Fe Sports Museum: This museum is located where Battalion 121 used to operate. When he was a boy, Messi and his friends would outwit the soldiers guarding the place and sneak into the huge field that turned into a 'potrero' to emulate an eleven-a-side soccer field. Today, a large metal cube 40 meters high stands out in the Parque Héroes de Malvinas. It houses a museum that pays homage to athletes who made the national sport great and were born in the province of Santa Fe. On the second floor, at the end of the tour of the football area, there is an exclusive space about Messi.

Club Abanderado Grandoli: The little field where at the age of 4, when he was with his grandmother in the stands as a spectator, his brother's team lost a player and Leo replaced him, scoring the winning goal. I've done an entry on Messi's time at Grandoli.

School N° 66 "Gral. Las Heras": His elementary school, which today has a mural by the Brazilian artist Paulo Consentino showing him wearing the albiceleste jersey. I've already done an entry on this topic.

La Bajada neighborhood: The streets where La Pulga played soccer with his brothers and friends. The figure of the crack can also be seen in one of the 34 murals that decorate the neighborhood.

El Campito Club: The 'potrero' where Leo Messi began his relationship with the ball is now a neighborhood club. In this little field he made his first friends and spent long afternoons kicking the ball and riding his bike. In December 2018 these friends decided to transform the place into a space for recreational, artistic and sports meetings. Girls and boys from La Bajada neighborhood can now enjoy a place where they can practice different sports, get together with friends and dream like Leo did.

Central Córdoba: In 1995 Messi wore the blue and red shirt of the Charrúa in a children's tournament in which he was crowned champion.

Paseo de los Olímpicos: The star plaque of the promenade is located at the intersection of Av. Pellegrini and Entre Ríos, where Lionel Andrés Messi, who in 2008 won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, is depicted.

Complejo Malvinas Newell's: This is the Newell's Old Boys children's soccer school where Messi began to approach his future as a professional.  You can check this entry for more information.

Coloso del Parque: Newell's stadium, where Messi used to go with his father and siblings as fans.

City Center Rosario: At the age of 9, Lucas Scaglia, a friend of Lionel's, invited his cousin Antonella to enjoy the Paraná River with them. It was there where their lives began to intertwine. They became good friends and even though Leo went to live in Barcelona, they never lost contact.

The page for the circuit can be found here. That is all for today, so as always, I hope you liked this entry and I'll see you in the next blog.

Messi and football tennis

One interesting variant to tennis is football tennis, where instead of using a racket, the object used is your body (except the arms, just like in football), while the rest remains relatively the same. Messi is no stranger to this sport, as we'll see in this entry.

Going back to 2005, there's footage of him playing football tennis with Tévez and then with Maradona himself. This was in the show 'Noche del 10'.

And continuing in 2005, he had played football tennis in the show Sin Cassette. He played with Pablo González at Plaza Rosario.

Now we go forward to 2007. This was once again in the show Sin Cassette. As we can see, Messi could easily do keepie-uppies and easily won the friendly match.

Moving forward to 2011, he played football tennis with some friends in Rosario on December 27th while he was on vacation.

In August 9th of 2014, Messi was making pre-season training with Barcelona and decided to play football tennis with his teammates. He even managed to do a bicycle kick and nail it.

Earlier in the year, he was doing some training with the national team previous to the 2014 World Cup, and he teamed up with Di María and Gago to play a 3-a-side football tennis match against Biglia, Agüero, and Lavezzi.

Later in the World Cup, specifically on June 20th prior to playing against Iran, Messi played a particular game of football tennis against Agüero. What separated both players was a fence, which separated the field from the tribune.

In June of 2015, preparing for the game against Jamaica, Messi played football-tennis alongside Di María.

In October of 2017, in a training with the national team prior to a World Cup qualifier against Peru, Messi did some football tennis with his teammates being Mascherano and Di María.

In May of 2018, preparing for the 2018 World Cup (with a friendly against Haiti beforehand), Messi played some football tennis and even did a bicycle kick, just like in 2014.

Then in June, Messi once again played football tennis with Argentina in preparation for the World Cup, playing alongside Di María and Mascherano.

In February of 2020, prior to a La Liga game against Eibar, Messi played football tennis alongside Vidal and once again did a bicycle kick.

As a side note, although not tennis, he played teqball with his son Thiago Messi. Antonella made a 4-second clip out of the match and Messi sent it on his Instagram account.

As we can see, football tennis can be a fun practice for Messi, and he has no problem with this variation, even taking some liberties and doing bicycle kicks from time to time, which he doesn't tend to do in football matches. That is all for today, so I hope you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Bruno Biancucchi, Messi's cousin and his first 'successor'

Bruno Biancucchi was born on November 23rd, 1996. He was the 3rd of three sons from Marcela Cuccittini and Claudio Biancucchi and is Lionel Messi's cousin since Marcela is Celia Cuccittini's sister. At that time, Messi was playing at Newell's and scored 36 goals in 27 games that year (as well as first meeting Antonella).

He rose to popularity in March of 2006 after El Mundo made an article of him, calling him Messi's successor (when Messi was only 18). Bruno was playing at Renato Cesarini at the time. Pedro Pécora, a mechanic from his neighborhood, said that Bruno had an even bigger potential than Messi's. His parents were also very optimistic about his future career. Infobae also took notice of this, as well as other news sources at the time.

Currently, he's playing at Newell's Old Boys, the club he's a fan of. He also sympathizes with Boca Juniors. He has a Twitter account, an Instagram account, and a Facebook account.

Although he didn't fulfill the potential some gave him, he's still passionate about football and he's only 24 years old, so there's still a future to his career. That is all for today, so I hope you liked this entry and I'll see you in the next blog.

All of Messi's Ballon d'Or presentations

With 6 Ballon d'Ors to his name, he has obviously had a presentation for all 6 of them, which will be today's subject. While many players could dream of presenting even 1 Ballon d'Or in front of their club's crowd, Messi has had the privilege of doing so multiple times.

The first one was in 2009, in Barcelona's Camp Nou game against Espanyol. He walked up the stairs to the pitch, got handed the Ballon d'Or by his mother, and proudly showcased it to the crowds while they and his team-mates clapped for him. He didn't play the game though to give him rest.

The second one was in 2010, although he made the presentation in early January of 2011. Against Real Betis at home, it was Puyol this time who handed him the award, as the claps were heard across the entire stadium and Messi posed with the award. He later scored a hat-trick in the game to confirm his superiority over the rest.

The third time was in January of 2012, once again against Real Betis. With the Ballon d'Or sitting in a table, Messi lifted it and showed it to the crowds, same as always. Barça also showcased their Club World Cup in the same presentation. This time, he scored a brace in the game to top it off.

January 2013 rolled around and Messi won the Ballon d'Or for the 4th time in a row. His presentation was against Málaga. All 4 Ballon d'Ors were shown between two tables, and Messi grabbed his 4th to show to the public. He later scored a goal and gave 2 assists in Barcelona's 3-1 win.

After some wait, the 5th Ballon d'Or came in 2015, and Messi presented it to the Camp Nou against Athletic Bilbao in La Liga. He got handed the award, showed it off to the crowds, and then the team posed with the Ballon d'Or. He scored a penalty early on but unfortunately got subbed off at half-time for some thigh problems.

Finally, in 2019, Messi won his 6th (and last at the moment) Ballon d'Or. This time, it was truly special, since his son, Thiago Messi, was the one that gave him the award. He went on to score a hat-trick in the game, his last since then.

All of Messi's Ballon d'Or celebrations were special in their own way, and also amplify his greatness as the only player to have won 6 Ballon d'Ors. I hope you liked this entry and I'll see you in the next blog.

Messi's ancestry

When talking about Lionel Messi, his most mentioned relatives are his siblings, parents and his maternal grandmother Celia, but, of course, it extends for much more than that, having detailed information going as back as the 18th century believe it or not. So without further ado, let's look at Messi's ancestry.

So far, we've reached until Messi's great-great-great-grandfathers Pacífico Messi (born circa 1797) and Lucía Catena. The main branch (where Messi came from) comes from Ángelo Messi, from where Messi's paternal ancestors come from. As it'll be seen in the next picture, he comes from Italian immigrants who immigrated to Argentina someHe also has Spanish ancestors, having info as back as Mariano Pérez Miralles (born in 1821) and Teresa Llobera Minguet (both married in 1846), his paternal great-great-grandfathers, to his father, Jorge Messi. This also leads to the weird fact that Bojan is a distant relative of his, since they share great-great-grandfathers (Pérez, which is present in Bojan's full name, can also be seen in every generation leading to Messi).

There's also another side of the branch, all carrying the Messi surname, which got started by Giovanni Messi (born in 1858). There are still living relatives nowadays, being the youngest one born in 1990.

With Messi having 3 children of his own, it's fascinating how far back we can look at Messi's ancestry, and the little fun details we can get from it like Bojan being a distant relative from him. Whoever did the work to find Messi's ancestors deserves huge praise, because we can see as far back as 6 generations from Messi, which is quite remarkable.

Every goal is for Celia

Out of the 730 goals he has scored in his entire career, even the ones he's scored in friendlies and his La Masía days, all of them have been dedicated to Messi's maternal grandmother, Celia Olivera de Cuccittini.

She was born on May 26th 1930, daughter to Pedro Olivera and Emilia. Later, at 31, she had a daughter called María Celia Cuccittini, who then, alongside Jorge Messi, had a son (as well as 3 other siblings) called Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini. She was Messi's main inspiration for becoming a footballer all the way back in 1992 when he first joined Grandoli (he entered the club thanks to Celia's efforts).

Unfortunately, she died in 1998 when Messi was still at Newell's Old Boys, and this obviously meant a lot to Leo. After all, the biggest supporter of his dreams had just gone away, so it wasn't going to be easy to continue.

But nevertheless, he continued, finishing his time at Newell's Old Boys, going to Barcelona in mid-2000, and continued his career there until today.

Now, every time he scores a goal, he points both of his index fingers to the sky to dedicate it to Celia, the person who introduced him to the sport who he's now the greatest at, and the first person to believe in his abilities.

Messi playing video games

Not only is he great at playing football in real life, but he's also good in the virtual world, having played games like FIFA multiple times in his spare time, having stated that he likes playing FIFA on his Play Station.

Back in 2012, before his game against Mallorca, he played FIFA on the Play Station alongside Marc Muniesa against another pair. He and Marc ended up as Champions of the Play Tournament. A day later, Messi scored and got a non-Opta assist against Mallorca, winning the MoTM. This shows how good he is both virtually and in real life at football.

He also plays FIFA with Thiago Messi, his son. Considering that Messi has said that Thiago loves to play videogames, we can assume that they play against each other often when Leo is at home. One recorded instance was back in 2017 when they both played FIFA 18 and Thiago either picked Real Madrid while Leo picked Barcelona or they both played on the same team.

He has also called himself "the king" when he plays FIFA on his Play Station against his team-mates back in 2015. And he also played a FIFA 15 tournament against his Barça team-mates back in 2014, where his team tied the first game 3-3 but later won the second game 1-0 on a Golden Goal rule (coincidentally the goal was made by FIFA Messi).

And finally, there's old footage of him playing PES 07 with one of the conductors of the show "Argentinos por su nombre" called Andy Kusnetzoff, and then against Agüero too.

Genes of the best

Thiago Messi, although very young (8 years old), has shown some potential and has been taking his father's footsteps. How has he been doing so far? This entry will tell you.

Unlike Leo, Thiago's strong foot is his right, as we can see from some of his videos. And although Leo said that he didn't like football too much, preferring video games instead, he has started to show more interest, and he still has a natural talent for it just like his father. He also wears the Nº 10 shirt.

He's currently playing for Barcelona Escola, specifically Escola Sergio (in honor to Busquets) and has shown to have some skills, as a video from early 2020 playing against Semedo's team showed how after receiving a pass, he ran through in the box and shot with his strong foot towards the goal, nailing it. There's also a video of him scoring a brace against the same team, Escola Semedo, one of them with a fake shot to get rid of a defender then score, and the second one being a strong finish to end the game 9-2. It's also worthy to note that most of the time Antonella and even Leo himself watch Thiago train/play with Barcelona Escola too.

For his training schedule, he had two days of training a week and then a game on Sunday afternoons. The training method being a series of progressive and interrelated exercises, adapted to each training level or stage (there are 3, which are Beginners age 6-8, Pre-training age 8-10, and Training age 10-12). They also teach him important values like humility, effort, ambition, respect, and teamwork.

He plays alongside Milán Piqué, Gerrard's son, and used to play with Benjamín Suárez before Luis' departure from the club this season to Atlético Madrid, so that's another bonus for him as well.

What he will become, only the future will tell. But until then, see you in the next entry.

Messi Christmas!

To celebrate that today is Christmas, I'll put some of Messi's Christmas photos on this entry, Merry Christmas everyone!

Credit: Clarín

Credit: Filo.news

Credit: Marca

Credit: Mundo Deportivo

Credit: Super Deportivo

As we can see, Messi clearly has a Christmas spirit alongside his family, and he's probably celebrating with them right now. I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a prosperous new year!