Lionel Messi’s teams:

Argentina, Spain and

France the stations in
legend's club football
journey
Lionel Messi has played for four
football clubs, including FC
Barcelona and PSG, since he started
playing. At the international level,
he plays for Argentina.

7 min

By Utathya Nag

05 December 2022 17:38 GMT+1

(Picture by 2011 Getty Images)

There’s not a single football team in the world

which wouldn’t want to have Lionel Messi on its
roster. After all, the Argentinian, a record seven-
time Ballon d’Or winner, is one of the best players
of all time.

However, over the course of his 18-year-long

professional career, Lionel Messi has only graced
two clubs, FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-
Germain (PSG).

Taking into account the two Argentinian youth

clubs he played, Lionel Messi has only played for
four clubs in his career - a number quite low for
modern-day footballers who end up playing for
several clubs over the course of their career.

Lionel Messi’s teams

Years Club

1992\1995 Grandoli (Argentina)

1995\2000 Newell's Old Boys (Argentina)
2000\2021 Barcelona (Spain)
2021-current PSG (France)

Lionel Messi’s first team:

Grandoli
Born in the city of Rosario, in Argentina’s Santa Fe
province, Lionel Messi was introduced to football
at an early age and used to play with his elder
brothers and cousins growing up.

Lionel Messi joined his first club Grandoli

Grandoli, a local
neighbourhood establishment near his house in
Rosario, when he was five years old. Interestingly,
Leo’s doting grandmother, Celia Olivera Cuccittini,
had a big role to play behind the move.

“One of my brothers or cousins was playing and

we used to go there (to the Grandoli club) every
day. The ‘86 team’, a team one year older than me,
was playing and they needed a player — so my
grandmother told the coach 'put him [Leo] in the
team',” Lionel Messi reminisced during an
interview.

The coach, however, was concerned with Lionel

Messi’s small physique at the time and was afraid
that he might get hurt playing against boys one
year senior to him.

But Leo’s grandmother was a persistent woman

and eventually got her way.

“Apparently when I went in, I did some things. My

grandmother came back and told him [the coach],
‘Buy him football boots, I’ll bring him to training
next week’ - and that’s when I started. It was an
amazing time,” Lionel Messi recalled.

Lionel Messi’s second

club: Newell's Old Boys
Lionel Messi spent four years developing at
Grandoli before joining the youth setup of
Newell's Old Boys, one of Rosario’s biggest clubs
which plays in the Argentine Primera Division.

While the circumstances of Messi’s departure

from Grandoli were never documented, an Al
Jazeera report later reported that Messi's family
fell out with the club ojicials. However, the move
to Newell's Old Boys made sense as it was a
professional club and ojered better infrastructure
and opportunities.

Besides, Lionel Messi’s family supported Newell's

Old Boys, or the Nuls, and reportedly the football
legend’s uncles and aunts gifted him a red and
black jersey of the club on his first birthday. Both
of Messi’s elder brothers had played youth-team
football for the Nuls.

Soon after Lionel Messi joined the Nuls and was

inducted into its youth setup, the young Lionel
Messi became the talisman for the club’s batch of
‘87, meant for boys who were born in 1987.

The team, which became famous as the La

Maquina del '87 or The Machine of '87, would go
on to dominate what was called ‘baby football’ in
Argentina - seven-a-side games children under 11
play in the country. La Maquina del '87 remained
unbeaten for three years.

Incidentally, Diego Maradona played for Newell's

Old Boys briefly in the 1993\94 season. The club
claims that during the half-time of Maradona’s
debut match for the Nuls, a six-year Lionel Messi
performed tricks on the football ground.

During his time at Newell's Old Boys, Lionel Messi

was diagnosed with Growth Hormone Deficiency
(GHD), a condition caused due to the body
producing insujicient amounts of growth
hormone, leading to impaired growth and
development.

A rare disorder which ajects only one in 10,000

children, treatment for GHD was expensive - way
beyond what Messi’s family could ajord. Despite
his promise on the football field, Old Boys also
shied away from the expenses.

It is rumoured that River Plate, Argentina’s biggest

and most famous football club, was interested in
signing Lionel Messi at the time but backed out
because of the high expenses required to treat
GHD.

Lionel Messi at
Barcelona
In his time of need, in stepped Spanish giants
Barcelona. The Catalan club had the resources to
easily foot the bill for Lionel Messi’s treatment and
their world-class youth setup also made the move
an alluring prospect.

In 2000, at the age of 13, Lionel Messi joined

Barcelona’s youth academy, the famed La Masia,
and the rest is history. Charly Rexach, the then
first team director of FCB
FCB, famously got Messi to
sign his first contract with the club on a paper
napkin.

Such was the Argentinian’s talent that he was

fast-tracked to the senior team in only four years
after playing briefly for Barca’s B and C teams.

Lionel Messi made his first team debut for

Barcelona against FC Porto, then coached by
Jose Mourinho, in a mid-season friendly at the
Estadio do Dragao on November 16, 2003. The
Portuguese team won the match 2\0 but Messi,
16 years, four months and 23 days old at the time,
was impressive in his cameo after coming on as a
substitute in the 75th minute.

Soon after, Lionel Messi signed his first-ever

professional contract with Barcelona. Messi made
his competitive debut in a La Liga match against
Espanyol on October 16, 2004, coming on as an
82nd-minute substitute.

Just 17 years, three months and 22 days old at the

time, Lionel Messi was the youngest player to play
a competitive match for Barcelona back then.
Soon, the Argentine established himself as a first-
team player and took over the mantle of the club’s
talisman from Brazilian icon Ronaldinho.

Lionel Messi would go on to play in 778 matches

for Barcelona, scoring 672 goals - both club
records - before his shock move to Paris Saint
Germain in 2021.

During his time with the Catalan giants, Lionel

Messi won 10 La Ligas and four UEFA Champions
League titles. All of his seven Ballon d’Or awards
also came for his exploits in a Barcelona shirt.

Lionel Messi’s shock

move to PSG
Regarded as Mr Barcelona, it seemed inevitable
that Lionel Messi would end his professional
career at Camp Nou. However, the fairytale
ending never came.

With Barca reportedly running into financial

trouble, contract talks between the player and
club stalled and Lionel Messi’s contract with the
Catalans expired in 2021. On August 5, 2021,
Barcelona conceded that it couldn’t ojer Messi a
new contract due to financial issues.

While several top teams were eager to rope in

Messi, French outfit PSG won the race for Messi’s
signature and signed him on a two-year contract
till 2023, with the option to extend it for a further
year.

Lionel Messi made his debut for PSG on August

29, coming on as a substitute in the second half of
a 2n0 away win over Reims in Ligue 1. He won the
2021\22 Ligue 1 title with PSG.

Lionel Messi international

team: Eligible to play for
Spain and Italy
Argentine by birth, it’s natural Lionel Messi plays
for the Argentina national football team
team. He
has represented the Albicelestes in various age
groups, winning the Olympic gold medal at
Beijing 2008, the Copa America in 2021 and FIFA
World Youth Championship in 2005.

Messi was also the star of the national team which

finished runners-up at the FIFA World Cup 2014 in
Brazil and is Argentina’s top goal scorer of all time.

However, things could have been very dijerent if

Lionel Messi had chosen to play for both Italy and
Spain due to his Catalan and Italian ancestry.

While the Italian football federation never explored

the option, the Spanish FA briefly played around
with the idea at the insistence of Carles Rexach.

“I was asked informally if I wanted to play for

Spain, but I always said that I wanted to play for
my national team because I love Argentina and
these are the only colours I want to wear. I was
always an avid fan of the national team. I watched
the games on television because I could never go
to the grounds and watch them as a fan," Lionel
Messi said.

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Related content

Lionel Messi’s goal-scoring record at

FIFA World Cups: Argentina's top scorer

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review

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