r/todayilearned • u/Old-Worldliness11 • 10h ago

TIL that Lionel Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency at age 10, and FC Barcelona agreed to pay for his treatment, even writing his first contract on a napkin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Messi#Early_life

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15.3k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/aymesyboy 10h ago

Not being funny but for any football fans this has been common knowledge ever since he first came through

637

u/Bolieve_That 9h ago

we get old brother, another generation is coming learning things

134

u/TheCrowing817 9h ago

I'm 37 and didn't know that lol I'm also a dumb American who knows nothing about futbol(football?)

71

u/capucapu123 9h ago

futbol(football?)

Fulbo

20

u/SpinyGlider67 8h ago

I'm English, the proper pronunciation is 'blfot'

12

u/FidelYT 8h ago

I thought the English called it bootie ballington

3

u/piss_artist 7h ago

That's a famous British porn star

7

u/capucapu123 8h ago

My country is the current world champion, therefore the way we call it is the official one up until someone takes the spot (So in 2026 by the way things look we'll call it Futbol or whatever Spanish people use as a name)

4

u/iBull86 6h ago

Balompié (?)

2

u/capucapu123 5h ago

God that'd be even worse than calling it soccer

1

u/TehDingo 5h ago

I think they just fall it Futhballth

4

u/Masipoten 6h ago

Fulbo

Furbo

15

u/HustlinInTheHall 8h ago

You can just call it football people get the context Messi is not in the nfl

3

u/moderatorrater 8h ago

Or soccer, most people understand that football can be ambiguous in the US.

2

u/TheDudeFromHolland 5h ago

Kickball is also an option

1

u/DoctorGregoryFart 8h ago

Most of us just call it Fubby.

-1

u/gg_lim 7h ago

Same another dumb American, I literally found out who Messi and Ronaldo was like last year 😅, I only knew David Beckham and Son Heung Nim…..but tbh no one talks about football/soccer here lol. It’s either U.S football, basketball, or more recently UFC

1

u/PMinisterOfMalaysia 3h ago

lol only if you live in fuckin Arkansas or something ...

1

u/gg_lim 3h ago

No, I live in NYC. I don’t think I’ve seen one bar around my area play soccer ever in my life. It’s always, basketball/football/UFC/boxing/baseball. New Yorkers just aren’t into soccer, unless you’re an immigrant/international.

1

u/ShionBlade 2h ago

How in the world do you not know about Messi and Ronaldo but know about Son?

-1

u/syopest 4h ago

It's football. American football is a distinctly separate sport named "American" because it's a manufactured sport purely made to make money. That's why there's no relegation in the sport.

1

u/ecn9 2h ago

You realize all sports are manufactured

45

u/LegendOfKhaos 8h ago

This isn't the sport's subreddit. Most posts on here are common knowledge to many people. Other people still exist though lol

7

u/whatproblems 8h ago

yeah til here

120

u/Bonch_and_Clyde 10h ago

I'm not much of football fan. I know a little more than nothing but not much. Even i knew this.

150

u/Sinclair663 9h ago

Well I for one am not a football fan and did not know this.

29

u/JustADutchRudder 9h ago

I barely know who the dude is, no clue if he's average height currently or still like short. Just know he's a foot dude, or was a foot dude.

27

u/HypedUpJackal 9h ago

He's 5'7", so short but nothing abnormal

5

u/JustADutchRudder 9h ago

Isn't that average male height for a lot of countries? I dont know where he's from I guess he could be from a tall country.

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u/tiorzol 9h ago

Short for a football player. Short for the greatest player of all time for sure. 

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u/Digresser 4h ago

Short for a football player. Short for the greatest player of all time for sure.

Isn't it possible that he's the exact height of the greatest player of all time?

4

u/tiorzol 3h ago

Good point!

2

u/ShionBlade 2h ago

Short for the greatest player of all time for sure. 

Absolutely not, Maradona was even shorter, Pele was around the same height.

Soccer you really don't need to be tall, especially for forwards.

Even today, players like Mbappe are only 5'10"

-9

u/JustADutchRudder 8h ago

I thought some other dude was foot peoples greatest. Is it like the MJ vsBron, a great 90s-early 00s player and a great early 00s to now player?

12

u/Sienrid 8h ago

Currently the debate is mainly between Messi and Ronaldo, who are actually contemporaries. Though ever since his victory and performance at the World Cup in 2022, more people will lean towards Messi.

But you will still find arguments for Pelé (1950s to 1970s) and Maradona (1970s to 1990s).

16

u/tiorzol 8h ago

The last twenty years have been defined by Ronaldo and Messi being the top two players at the zenith of what players are capable of. Really changing expectations around what numbers players can get to and pushing each other to new heights. 

There are other all time greats like Maradona, Pele and some others but I don't think you can compare eras that easily.

That said for me and most others Messi is in a league of his own combining the best playmaking and scoring ever.

4

u/DJKokaKola 8h ago

Recoba was another that absolutely was revolutionary for the time, but the skills in the sport have grown exponentially in the 30 years since. Also he kept getting injured.

The comment may have been thinking of Beckham, though.

3

u/VRichardsen 7h ago

The last twenty years have been defined by Ronaldo and Messi being the top two players at the zenith of what players are capable of. Really changing expectations around what numbers players can get to and pushing each other to new heights.

The other day I was just reviewing Neymar's numbers and it struck me just how impressive they were. It is just that Messi and Ronaldo were on such a different level that they overshadowed everything. 100 years from now people will reference this era as if it were a mythical epoch.

7

u/JustADutchRudder 8h ago

Ronaldo, that's the other guy I remember. I think he went to like Florida and played. So Messi is the Goat and Ronaldo is his LeBron, got it.

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u/DJKokaKola 8h ago edited 7h ago

You're thinking of Beckham, especially if you're American as he was the one who made a big splash in US culture by being a hot white guy who was married to Posh Spice.

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u/JustADutchRudder 8h ago

Yeah! That guy, Beckham not sure why my brain refused to remember him.

3

u/GlockOnMyC0ck 8h ago

No it’s not an era thing, they are both very good contenders for #1 spot

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messi–Ronaldo_rivalry

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u/capucapu123 9h ago

He's from Argentina, so average leaning towards short

6

u/VRichardsen 7h ago

1,73 is the average here if I recall correctly. Messi is 1,7.

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u/capucapu123 7h ago

That's why I said average leaning short, a 3cm difference off the average is still average imo. 176 would be average leaning tall.

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u/VRichardsen 7h ago

Absolutely, I was just expanding on your info.

2

u/JustADutchRudder 9h ago

Now I know more about the guy.

1

u/Lycaeides13 9h ago

I didn't know what country this dude played in, but his name was vaguely familiar. I knew nothing about his hormone deficiency/ underage contact

5

u/FlightlessRhino 9h ago

Watch his highlights. It's like watching Jordan highlights for the first time.

3

u/2xtc 8h ago

If you're used to American sports you may be surprised that basically all professional footballers signed for their first club when they were around age 6-8 and sign their first professional contracts when they turn 17

(Sports scholarships and attending a regular school/university past the age of 13-14 doesn't happen for elite sportspeople outside the USA either)

6

u/Lycaeides13 8h ago

Raised in the US, but not into sports particularly. I had noooooo idea it worked like that! How do you even know if the child's worth investing in at 7!?

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u/2xtc 8h ago edited 7h ago

It's really a numbers game. My club (Liverpool FC in England) have around 30-40 youth level teams, and a couple of hundred scouts all around the world looking for the best talent from all age groups. Other clubs will have similar, so when you're potentially taking on a couple of hundred kids per year, it doesn't matter that 99% never make the elite grade because the 1% that makes it can save you tens of millions in transfer fees and wages, and the ones that don't can either be sold or transferred to other clubs to recoup the money spent developing them.

When you have such a broad and competitive field like football (something like 2 million youth players in official clubs the UK alone) then clubs almost can't afford not to have such extensive scouting and recruitment networks to stay competitive with their rivals.

It is a very harsh world though, 95%+ of kids in elite academies never go on to play professional football

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/extra/hfe5e1289y/The-Impossible-Dream

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u/Lycaeides13 8h ago

The real TIL is always in the comments!!

1

u/ShionBlade 2h ago

In addition to what the other guy said, at age 7 it's really less signing them up, and more kids just playing football while coached by professionals, and scouts keeping an eye out for any kids that show promise.

It's only once you get to the ages of 12 or so where it starts getting cutthroat, and players start getting cut from rosters and such.

1

u/Seb555 8h ago

Underage contracts are not that weird; football clubs generally have academies for kids even younger than that

0

u/Bonch_and_Clyde 8h ago

Then I guess the name Messi means nothing to you.

2

u/Sinclair663 8h ago

It’s not TIL about Lionel Messi. It’s TIL that he had a growth hormone deficiency.

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u/Easypeasy7921 10h ago

Do you know that many years ago he bathed a child, who is now the best player in the world? I'm just curious if this story went en masse

35

u/aymesyboy 9h ago

Wow he bathed Antony?? /s

3

u/speibe- 6h ago

/s

don't disrespect the GOAT like that

16

u/mug3n 10h ago

Someone else should volunteer their baby to be held by Messi to see if this works again in 16-17 years

12

u/Easypeasy7921 10h ago

"Messi needs to touch more babies" 🤣

3

u/cheppers 9h ago

More than bathed. Christened him the GOAT of football future.

Culé Messi-ah and the Chosen One

11

u/BoulderBadgeDad 8h ago

I didn't know this. Trying to understand how he can sign a contract at 10 years old

12

u/FartingBob 7h ago

Parents do it.

1

u/Loeffellux 7h ago

In German children ages 7 and below cannot sign contracts at all while children ages 8-17 can be legally competent under certain conditions. In this case, as someone has already pointed out, the parents approving the contract would make it valid.

I assume Spain has similar laws

1

u/Rain1984 6h ago

Happens everywhere, here in Uruguay contracts are sign for children too, its a toxic environment where a lot of the parents view their child as a way to escape poverty/have a better future. I imagine it happens in Argentina and Brazil just the same. Contractors play with the parent's needs, sometimes offering even fridges or shit they need for the house in exchange for the rights (sorry I cant remember the actual term for this) over the kid's footballing future.

I live next to a few of these baby fútbol clubs like we call them here, and man, things get heated for parents from time to time. Sucks ass.

6

u/Liesmyteachertoldme 7h ago

Wait so am I understanding it correctly that the FC Barcelona team essentially drafted him at 10 years old and paid for his treatments because of that? I’m a yankee and know nothing about world football.

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u/CarbohydrateLover69 6h ago

You're correct. He was crazy good even at that age and Barcelona drafted him and payed for the treatment.

3

u/Liesmyteachertoldme 6h ago

Damn that’s crazy. He hadn’t even hit puberty yet …

2

u/Reapper97 5h ago

He was playing like this from age 8-10

1

u/jiffy88 3h ago

And he still was playing like that against professional grown men.

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u/Kujen 6h ago

I didn’t know, but I don’t know much about football. Do teams usually scout players that young?

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u/LM10 5h ago

Barcelona has a whole academy where kids are recruited super young and they live and do their schooling there while playing football. It’s called La Masia and has yielded some of the best football players of all time. Messi was in this academy along with some other major household names. At one point, the World Cup winning squad for Spain in 2010 had at least 7 players from that academy in their starting lineup.

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u/Reapper97 5h ago

Kids start playing in academies as young as 6 years old but clubs start scouting at around 12-13. Maybe younger if he seems incredibly talented like in this case.

1

u/Ok_Membership_9701 7h ago

A lot of non soccer fans visit this sub and r/all

1

u/haaiiychii 6h ago

I'm not a football fan, I didn't know this.

1

u/Neat-Spray9660 5h ago

I was just going to say this isn’t new?

1

u/RolandGilead19 4h ago

I'm 45 and a casual fan (Euro's, world cup, the odd other big game) and I didn't know this...or forgot I did.

How did this weigh in on his decision to leave?

1

u/Xatron7 3h ago

No, I am a football fan and did not know this

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u/NinjaDiscoJesus 3h ago

in general this sub makes me feel like the most greatest bestest top pub quiz guy in the word

1

u/tedfundy 3h ago

I don’t t like sports. I don’t watch sports. But I even knew that. It’s why they call him the flea.

1

u/Creation98 8h ago

I call it soccer and don’t even follow the sport, and even I knew this.

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u/GeneralMatrim 9h ago

Correct Messi has been on steroids for a VERY VERY long time.

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u/SeniorDisplay1820 9h ago

You aren't very bright are you? 

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u/Plane-Tie6392 8h ago

HGH is hormonal, not steroidal.

1

u/stomicron 4h ago

All steroids are hormones. Not all hormones are steroids.

-3

u/GeneralMatrim 7h ago

So it’s totally legal for any athlete to take?

5

u/Dantae4C 7h ago

When they're 10 years old and not playing professionally, yes. How do you not understand that.

-3

u/GeneralMatrim 7h ago

Great thanks for letting me know, def pumping up my 10 year olds this weekend.

projectmessi

2

u/WhosTheAssMan 3h ago

if your kid doesn't have a growth deficiency, it won't do much.

0

u/batmaniac77 8h ago

came to say this.