Lionel Messi is one of the best soccer players in this sport’s history. Besides showing his otherworldly skills on the green field, he is also an innovative creator, joining the NFT (non-fungible token) mega world with his collection of token artworks depicting his most famous goal poses and trophies.
However, before venturing into Messi’s NFT world, we’d love to share a thing or two about his early life and impressive career.
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Biography
Luis Lionel Andres Messi was born June 24, 1987, in Rosario, Argentina, the birth town of Che Guevarra. He was born with a growth-deficiency hormone and was the tiniest among the three brothers. However, this didn’t stop him from practicing with his brothers. He was recruited for the first time when he was only 8-years old.
A Rosario-based club, Newell’s Old Boys, recruited Messi to train for them although he was the smallest of all boys in his age group. Nevertheless, he showed exceptional talent for the sport but needed to receive a growth-hormone injection therapy by night, which became financially impossible for his parents Jorge and Cecilia.
At the age of 13, Messi was recognized by FC Barcelona recruiters and was offered to join the team’s youth academy, La Masia, having all of his medical bills covered. His first contract with FC Barcelona was written on a napkin as the team’s sporting director at that time, Carles Rexach, was mesmerized by the teenager’s skills, so he wanted to sign an immediate contract.
Signing with FC Barcelona
Lacking a piece of paper at the moment, the sports director wrote the contract on a paper napkin, framed up to date in Messi’s parents’ home. After the entire family moved to Spain and young Leo got his regular hormone therapy, he moved quickly through the FC Barcelona’s junior rankings. Leo Messi is only 5 ft 7” tall. His short stature and extreme speed not only help him fast-forward to the professional league, but he also got compared to his countryman, the genius player Diego Maradona.
After signing for FCB when he was only 13-years old, he started playing professionally when he was only 16-years old and made a record as the youngest scorer in the club’s history on May 1, 2005. The incredible skills of the lefty player won an outstanding number of titles for FCB, including the Champions League, La Liga, and Spanish Super Cup titles, all in 2009.
Messi is also known for his personal soccer awards as the FIFA “World Player of the Year” honor/Ballon d’Or award, also in 2009. By the way, Leo Messi is a seven-time Ballon d’Or winner for the best man’s soccer player in the world, more than any other player in history. His last Ballon d’Or win was in 2021, as part of his new team, Paris Saint-Germain.
Collective Titles
He has won over 50 collective awards for FC Barcelona, the National Team of Argentina, and Paris Saint-Germain. Some of the most significant titles of his career include
- South American U-20 Championship, third place, 2005
- UEFA Champions League, 2005-2006
- UEFA Super Cup Runner-up, 2006
- Summer Olympics, Argentina, 2008
- La Liga, 2008-2009
- FIFA Club World Cup, 2009
- Supercopa de España, 2010
- UEFA Champions League, 2010-2011
- Copa del Rey, 2011-2012
- Copa del Rey, 2015-2016
- Supercopa de España, 2018
- La Liga, 2018-2019
- Copa del Rey, 2018-2019
- Copa América, 2021
Last year in August, Leo Messi’s contract with Barcelona came to an end, and there are numerous speculations about its termination. He is now the start scorer for Paris Saint-Germain, continuing his brilliant soccer career as one of the best players ever.
Leo Messi and NFTs
As we’ve mentioned at the beginning of this text, Leo Messi has ventured himself into the NFTs world, launching his Messiverse art collection on Ethernity blockchain. This blockchain platform offers access to officially licensed NFTs, and Messiverse is one of the newest on the team. The crypto artwork launched by Messiverse is designed by the world-class digital designer BossLogic.
Based in Australia and doing work for Disney and Marvel, BossLogic was the obvious design of Messiverse’s team to reach flawlessly designed unique tokens of the world’s #1 soccer player. BossLogic has commented on the artwork and its content, explaining that users would be able to see moments of team love and achievements.
At the moment, there are only three (second and third are the same token with different jersey numbers) artwork tokens of Leo Messi, depicting different moments of his career, while there’s a fourth one announced. All of them are a futuristic representation of AI bionic-driven standards, showing the best player as the golden standard of the game, which he surely is.
Messiverse’s Artwork Tokens
- “The Golden One” – The first token represents a golden-dust Leo Messi with his old number 10.
- “Man From Tomorrow” – The second and third NFT tokens of Messiverse portray an AI bionic form of the player, and there are two versions of it, one with his old number 10 and another with his new number 30.
- “The King Piece” – The third token is the crown of Messiverse for now, resembling the era when kings ruled the world. According to BossLogic, Messi is the king of the sports world, so that’s where he found his inspiration for the third NFT token.
The fourth token is still expected by many, and it will depict a moment from Argentina’s win in the Copa America final over Brazil in 2021.
Messiverse’s tokens are for sale and can be paid in cryptocurrencies, presuming that all altcoins will be in the game. Since Messi launched his NFT, it looks like the soccer world’s interest in trading tokens increased by a high percentage. Soon after Messi’s launch, Arsenal Football Club partnered with blockchain provider, Chiliz and launched the $AFC Fan Token. Messiverse artwork tokens are available on Socios.com.
Bottom Line
As Messi’s career moves fast forward and he keeps playing soccer after an astonishing 20-year game in FC Barcelona, the same rocket-speed push is happening with the NFT market. The more celebrities start investing in the NFTs, the more the market grows, and the prices reach incredibly high limits.
If it wasn’t for Leo’s Messiverse, maybe soccer fans would never get into NFTs or consider investing in the market. However, thanks to his innovative approach and excellent team of supporters, Messi is creating history not only in his game but in digital art as well.
Of course, some colleagues of his made inappropriate comments about his latest venture out of soccer, but he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it. Messi keeps giving his best on the field, no matter what team stands behind him, and that’s what we love about him.
As for his NFT involvement, we can’t wait to see the fourth epic artwork token and observe the development of Messiverse. Hopefully, we get to see more beautiful things come from the genius BossLogic and celebrate his extraordinary designs.
Lionel Messi is more than soccer. He is more than digital design art; overall, he is the king of modern-world soccer, and no one can deny it. Keep in mind he made history in soccer, and we want to see him triumph on the NFTs market too. Cheers to Messiverse and the spectacular golden-hue AI artwork tokens.