Lionel Messi, a legend for both Barcelona and Argentina, has compiled a list of his 10 “favorite” teammates from during his whole professional football career.
Messi began his professional career at Barcelona, where he established himself as one of the best footballers of all time and scored an incredible 672 goals in 778 appearances. Messi is currently playing for the Argentina national team.
The attacker then spent the next two years playing for Paris Saint-Germain, where he ultimately won the World Cup, the only honor that had escaped him up until that point in his career.
Now playing for Inter Miami in the Major League Soccer, Lionel Messi is beginning a new chapter in his career alongside former teammates of his at Barcelona, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba.
In a recent interview with Titan Sports, he was asked to select his favorite team-mates that he has played with throughout the course of his footballing career, and the list reads like a who’s who of football luminaries.
The Argentine forward Lionel Messi has revealed his top 10 “favorite” teammates.
Messi started out by mentioning none other than Ronaldinho, who was the pioneer of countless legendary skill plays and, of course, one of Barcelona’s top players during the middle of the 2000s. Messi said Ronaldinho was his inspiration for becoming a better player.
He then on to name a number of other legendary players for Barcelona, such as Xavi, Andres Iniesta, and Samuel Eto’o. Every player on the list had also competed for Les Cules at the same time as the Argentine.
The following is a comment from Lionel Messi that was published in the Daily Mirror: “Like Ronaldinho, Deco, Eto’o, [Luis] Suarez, Xavi, Iniesta, and Busquets.
“I had the good fortune to compete against and enjoy the game with some of the game’s most talented players. To return to the topic at hand, I almost forgot about Neymar due to the sheer number of other people.
After first listing eight different players, Messi afterwards added two more names to the list.
“There must be many players I forgot to mention,” he remarked. “I apologize for that.”
“I’ve had the good fortune to play with some of the best players, including some of the best strikers. Examples include Neymar, Eto’o, Suarez, [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic, [David Villa], and a great deal of other players.
“I’ve had the good fortune to play with the best of them, so it’s easy for me to get along with all of them, or almost all of them, and that’s why it’s never been difficult for me to play with them,” he said.
As Messi attempts to lead Inter Miami higher up the table in the MLS Eastern Conference, the players on the team that he now plays for will hopefully become some of his most reliable allies.
The 36-year-old forward has scored three goals and provided an assist for his new club in the first two matches of the League Cup, but the club now has the poorest record of any MLS team in 2023 and is positioned last in the Eastern Conference.