For someone as great and popular as Messi, it would be common to see a lot of PR made about him by his team, but as it turns out, that's not the case, which is today's entry topic.
On Twitter, although he doesn't have an official Twitter page, there's his PR team, Messi Team. But upon further inspection, it seems more marketed towards Adidas than Messi. This has been noted since there's q strong belief that Team Messi could do much more when it comes to Messi's PR (only 1 main tweet since December 2019 which was his 6th Ballon d'Or). This is because it's managed by Adidas, but Messi still has control over the account's PR.
Which leads to the questions, what's his stance on Messi Team's PR for him? Well, he prefers his PR team not boast his stature, being very strict on this manner. More bluntly, as and ex freelance graphic designer from Team Messi, said: "He is of the opinion that PR is for the weak and that it just falsifies what a player does or doesn't do on the pitch.". Even Messi Team's lets us know of this, with one of the last advertisements saying "Let your feet do the talking" after he won the 2019 The Best.
It's logical to assume this extends to his other branches of PR other than Twitter. In conclusion, his own humbleness doesn't let him get much help from PR, since he'd rather do his magic on the pitch and let the world be the witness.
Finally, after the international break ended, we got to see Messi play once again. A game dominated by Barcelona could not break the deadlock until added time, giving Barcelona 3 crucial points since they are now 1 point away from Atlético Madrid (who lost against Sevilla). Dembélé's winner will prove to be vital if Barcelona wins La Liga. Messi's stats were: 2 SOT (7 in total), 0.36 xG, 4 dribbles, 1 nutmeg, 5 key passes (1 chance created), 0.21 xA, 9 SCA, 4 ground duels won (16 contested), 1 aerial duel contested, 2 fouls won, 5 pressures (none successful), 2 long balls, 1 cross, 46 passes, and 85 touches, a MoTM performance from him.
He remains the best player in La Liga by a distance, and aside from the MVP and the Pichichi, Messi looks to win La Liga itself as well. Another thing to note is that Messi, unfortunately, didn't get G/A this game, ending his 14-game G/A streak in La Liga which started all the way back against Valencia on December 19th, 2020.
And, of course, let's not forget Barça's tribute to Messi's at the beginning of the game, bringing his whole family in as well, to commemorate Messi's 767+ games at Barcelona, a nice gesture to his legendary status in the club.
With the recent international break having seemingly done more harm than good to Barça's form, hopefully, they can keep winning games and perhaps finally snatch away Atlético's leadership over La Liga which has lasted so long.
Although he's not active on social media, not even having an official Twitter account, he still has an impressive amount of followers, which will be today's topic.
On Instagram, he has 195 million followers, which is more than the population of Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, and Japan. It's even 4 times the population of Argentina. Since his first post on August 14th 2013, he's made 696 posts on his Instagram, which equates to around 1 every 4 days, so a bit reserved.
Moving to Facebook, Messi has over 101 million followers, as well as over 90 million likes on his Facebook page. He's not very active here either. As a fun fact, he got 6.5 million followers in his first 3 hours back when he created his account in April 2011.
Those are the 2 only social media sites where Messi has an official account, but on Twitter Team Messi does have an official account, so it's close enough. Over there, Team Messi has almost 2.98 million followers, so very near the 3 million mark.
As we can see, despite having limited usage on his 2 main social media platforms, and not even having one on Twitter (the closest being a fan movement founded by Adidas), he still amasses a massive following which only demonstrates how popular he is all over the world.
It's not often that we see Messi swapping shirts with other players, but it's clear that a lot of people would want a shirt from him so it does happen from time to time.
The first recorded instance was in June 24th, 2006, against Mexico in the 2006 World Cup R16. He swapped shirts with Rafael Márquez (team-mate of his in Barcelona at the time).
The next instance was in February 20th 2008, in the UCL R16 first leg against Celtic. Here, he swapped shirts with Celtic's captain Stephen Mcmanus after the final whistle, and both handshaked afterward.
In 2012, after the first leg 3-1 win against Bayer Leverkusen away in the 2011/12 UCL R16, Messi was seen swapping shirts with Czech defender Michal Kadlec, who had previously fought with his team-mate Friedrich over who would get the shirt. Coincidentally, both featured a year later on the Czech version of FIFA 14's cover.
He once again swapped shirts only 2 rounds later in the same UCL, when he swapped shirts with John Terry after the 2011/12 UCL semi-final first leg against Chelsea. He had previously faced the English defender multiple times in the Champions League.
Later on in the same year, he swapped shirts with his idol Pablo Aimar, after beating Benfica 2-0 with 2 assists from him.
In the same UCL season, after the end of the second leg between Barcelona and PSG, Messi and his compatriot Lavezzi exchanged shirts.
In September 2013, after winning 4-0 against Rayo Vallecano, he swapped shirts with Argentine striker Joaquín Larrivey.
In January 2014, he swapped shirts with Arda Turan after Barcelona and Atlético Madrid tied 0-0 in La Liga. He later joined Barcelona 1 ½ years later.
Next up is Argentina against Jamaica in the 2015 Copa América, which ended 1-0 for Argentina. At the end of the game, he swapped shirts with Jobi McAnuff, Jamaica's Nº 10.
Not long after, in August of that same year, he swapped shirts with Roma legend Totti to auction for Roma Cares & Fundación Barça.
The same year, in November, and involving Roma again, Messi exchanged shirts with Lucas Digne, defender of the Italian team.
In April 2017, after Barcelona got kicked out of the UCL on a 3-0 aggregate against Juventus, Chiellini and Bonucci fought over who would get Messi's jersey, which Bonucci ultimately won.
Then, in August, he swapped shirts with Alan Ruschel, one of the few survivors of Chapecoense's plane crash back in November 2016.
After the first-leg draw between Barcelona and Chelsea in the UCL R16, Messi and ex-team-mate Fabregas swapped shirts with eachother.
After the 2018 World Cup clash between Iceland and Argentina, Messi swapped shirts with Birkir Bjarnason.
In January 2019, after winning 2-1 against Getafe with a goal from Messi, he exchanged shirts with Getafe's goalkeeper Jaime Mata.
In March 2019, despite the known rivalry between Barcelona and Espanyol, young left-back Adria Pedrosa asked for Messi's shirt after the end of the game (which was won 2-0 thanks to Messi's brace). It shows that even fierce rivals admit his greatness.
In the Copa América of the same year, he exchanged shirts with Junior Moreno after Argentina won 2-0 against Venezuela.
In October, after beating Inter Milan 2-1 with an assist from him, he swapped shirts with his compatriot Lautaro Martínez.
In the same UCL season, in the first leg R16 game against Napoli, he swapped shirts with Lorenzo Insigne.
In October of the same year, he swapped shirts with Carlos Grueso from Ecuador, after Argentina won 1-0 with a goal from Messi.
Then, in December, he exchanged shirts with Italian legend Buffon after Barcelona lost 3-0 to Juventus.
In February of 2021, after beating Elche 3-0 with 2 goals from him, he exchanged shirts with Elche's goalkeeper, Edgar Badia, in a heartwarming scene.
And finally, the last one I found was when he swapped shirts with his countryman Icardi after PSG kicked Barça out of the UCL.
This has been my longest entry yet, and I worked very hard to find all of these, so I hoped you liked it and I'll see you in the next blog.
After scoring an impressive 37 goals in 30 games with Barça's Cadete A, being the star player of Barça's best Cadete side ever, which didn't lose a single game and won the league, Copa Catalunya and the Spanish Championship, he was promoted to Juvenil B. It would be the beginning of a rollercoaster of a season for him, playing in 6 different teams overall.
He made his debut against Feyenoord in the U-17 Club World Cup final, assisting Songo'o's equalizer, and later winning the game 3-1. Shortly after, he won the José Luis Ruiz Casado Memorial 6-0 against Betis 6-0 with a brace and assist from him, and then the J. Gil Alonso Final against Espanyol 2-1 with a goal from him. After seeing those performances, he was quickly promoted to Juvenil A.
With Juvenil A, he made his debut against Hércules with a goal and won 3-0. He had an ankle injury in early October but quickly recovered from it. Afterward, he got his first poker of the season against Gimnàstic in Barça's 7-0 win. A bit over 2 weeks later, he scored a hat-trick against Granollers, and Rijkaard was made aware of his talent, and so, he was selected for a friendly against Porto.
November 16th, 2004, that was the day of his unofficial debut in Barcelona against Porto after being subbed on 74 minutes in. He had 2 good scoring chances but he unfortunately couldn't convert. Still, he made a good performance despite Barça losing 2-0.
Not long after, he made his debut in Barcelona C against Europa, winning 2-1. And before the end of the year, he won the Trofeo Ciudad de Nerja with Juvenil A, making 2 assists in Barça's 2-0 win in the semi-final against Málaga then 2 goals against Real Betis in the final, winning 3-2.
Entering 2004, after scoring a hat-trick against Gramenet to win Barcelona C the game 3-2, and some other good performances with the C team, he played once against with Barça's senior team, this time against Shakhtar Donetsk, entering in the second half.
Not long after, on March 6th, he made his debut with Barcelona B against Mataró, winning the game 1-0 though getting a yellow card. He made a few other performances with the B team before returning to Juvenil A and bagging a hat-trick against Vilobi in a 5-1 victory.
In the final games of the season with Barcelona, he returned to Juvenil B after getting injured over a week, and he ended up winning the league title with them on May 8th. His last games were with Juvenil A in the Copa del Rey Junior, scoring a poker against Sevilla in the R16, helping with a goal and an assist in Barça's 4-1 aggregate victory over Real Sociedad in the QF, then finally getting eliminated by Osasuna due to away goals, scoring a brace in the first leg.
After seeing those performances from him (40 goals and at least 6 assists in 46 games), and rejecting Spain's offer to play for them, he was called up for the U-20 Argentinian national team. He made his debut on June 29th against Paraguay, scoring an amazing solo goal starting halfway the pitch and giving 2 assists as well in Argentina's 8-0 victory. A few days later, he played against Uruguay in his last game of the season and made a brace as well as giving an assist in Argentina's 4-1 victory.
Overall, it was an amazing experience, starting at Juvenil B and ending up in 2 friendly games with the senior team and breaking havoc all the way up to Barcelona B, even getting called up for the U-20 national team, so it's safe to assume this was Messi's breakthrough season in terms of talent before officially making his debut in the senior team.
After my initial entry detailing why Messi is the best dribbler in history, it's now time to show you, the reader of this blog, Messi's evolution in dribbling all the way back from the 2004/05 season to the 2020/21 season.
The sheer amount of content that can be made solely out of Messi's dribbling is astounding, which is another reason why he's the best dribbler of all times. Being a top dribbler from the beginning isn't easy, but for Messi, everything is. And as always, I'll see you in the next blog.
With another month gone, it's now time to analyze how Messi performed in the month of March. Upsides and downsides on collective terms, but the individual genius in Messi remains as intact as always.
In only 5 games, Messi achieved 5 goals, 4 assists, and 1 pre-assist, being MoTM in 5/5 of those games and earning a perfect 10/10 in 3/5 games, and at least a 9/10 in the two other games. A form only the GOAT Lionel Messi can keep up with.
In collective terms, although he got kicked out of the Champions League by PSG, his team managed to get an amazing comeback against Sevilla in the Copa del rey, going from 2-0 down to 3-2 up in the aggregate (with Messi being the main orchestrator). They've also gotten closer to Atlético Madrid for the top of the table in La Liga.
These were his highlights of the month in video:
For April, the goal is to get to the top of the table and win the Copa del Rey final they have with Athletic Bilbao. Hopefully, both of those goals can be achieved, but until then, see you in the next blog.
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