Lionel Messi is a soccer player, and people call him Leo. He is famous for scoring lots of goals, and he has played for Argentina's national soccer team. He was born in Rosario, Argentina, on June 24, 1987, and as of November 2026 he is 39 years old. Lionel Messi is left-footed, and as of November 2026 he is listed at 5 feet 7 inches tall. As of November 2026, Lionel Messi plays for Inter Miami CF, where he wears number 10, and he has played more than 1,000 games for club and country, as of November 2026.

As a young boy, Lionel Messi tagged along when his two older brothers played soccer with their friends, and at age 8 he was recruited to the youth system of Newell's Old Boys, a club based in Rosario, and at age 13 he joined FC Barcelona, and his family moved across the Atlantic to make a new home in Spain, and Lionel Messi first played for the Barcelona first team in a friendly match with Porto, when he was 16, and he made his first appearance in an official match for Barcelona on October 16, 2004.

From a young age, Lionel Messi stood out at Barcelona because of his vision and his goalscoring ability, and he moved quickly up through the youth teams. On May 1, 2005, he became the youngest player to score a goal for the club. Lionel Messi spent the seasons from 2003 to 2021 at Barcelona, and as of November 2026 Lionel Messi is the club's record goalscorer, with 672 goals in 778 matches, and he is also the all-time top goalscorer in La Liga, with 474 goals in 520 matches. Lionel Messi passed Pele's record for goals at a single club, which stood at 643, as of November 2026, and Lionel Messi scored 91 goals in a single calendar year, as of November 2026. At Barcelona he won 10 La Liga titles, four Champions Leagues and seven Spanish Cups, and as of November 2026 Messi and Barcelona won 35 trophies together during his time at the club.

Lionel Messi left Barcelona in the summer of 2021, and Lionel Messi made his debut for Paris Saint-Germain, his new club, on August 29, 2021, and scored his first goal for the club that September, and he reached 700 club goals in Paris Saint-Germain's 3-0 win against Marseille on 26 February 2023. His two-year contract with Paris Saint-Germain ended in early June 2023, and the club did not renew it. Barcelona offered to bring Lionel Messi back in June 2023, according to a statement from the club. Later, in June 2023, Lionel Messi said that he intended to join Inter Miami after leaving Paris Saint-Germain.

Lionel Messi made his professional debut with the Argentina national team in an August friendly match against Hungary. With that national team, Lionel Messi won an Olympic gold medal in 2008, when Argentina beat Nigeria 1-0 in the Olympic football final and defended its Olympic football title. In that final, Lionel Messi's pass helped set up the winning goal by Angel Di Maria.

The 2021 Copa America was Lionel Messi's first title with Argentina's senior national team, and in the 2021 Copa America final at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, Argentina's winning goal came in the 22nd minute, and the 2021 victory was Argentina's 15th Copa America title. Lionel Messi finished the 2021 Copa America as the joint top goalscorer with four goals. Argentina won the Copa America again in 2024, so Lionel Messi has two Copa America titles with the national team. In the 2024 final, Argentina beat Colombia 1-0, with Lautaro Martinez scoring the only goal, and Argentina won a record 16th Copa America title, as of November 2026, which gave Lionel Scaloni his fourth title as Argentina's coach. As of November 2026, Lionel Messi is the player with the most matches in the history of the Copa America, and he was named the best player of the Copa America in 2015 and 2021.

In the 2022 World Cup final, Lionel Messi, playing for Argentina against France, put Argentina ahead 1-0 with a first-half penalty. The penalty came 22 minutes into the game. Lionel Messi scored two goals in the final, and Kylian Mbappe scored all three of France's goals in that final. Lionel Messi scored his second goal of the final in the 108th minute, in extra time, from a rebound after a shot was parried, to put Argentina ahead 3-2. Argentina beat France on penalty kicks, which was a shootout in which Lionel Messi also scored, and Gonzalo Montiel converted the decisive penalty of the shootout in that final.

In that 2022 World Cup final, Lionel Messi extended his record for World Cup appearances, and at 35 years and 177 days he was the second-oldest man to score in a World Cup final. At the 2022 World Cup Lionel Messi scored seven goals and became the first male player to score in every stage of the tournament. In the same tournament, Lionel Messi was named the best player of the 2022 World Cup and won the Golden Ball. Lionel Messi and Argentina won the World Cup in 2022, which was his first World Cup title and the third for Argentina, and Messi inspired Argentina to the 2022 title, as Diego Maradona did in Mexico in 1986.

Argentina's 26-player roster for the 2026 World Cup included Lionel Messi, and Argentina went into the 2026 World Cup tournament as the defending champions. Before the 2026 World Cup final, Lionel Messi had said that it was his last World Cup, just as in December 2022 he had announced that the 2022 World Cup would be his last. In the 2026 World Cup final, Spain beat Argentina 1-0, with the goal in the second period of extra time, when Ferran Torres scored the winning goal early in that period, and the 2026 title was Spain's second World Cup title.

Words to know

• defending: holding the title
• roster: player list
• parried: pushed away
• rebound: bounce back
• shootout: tie breaker