We all know Messi started his senior career at Barcelona with the number 30. He had scored his first ever senior goal with that kit before switching to number 19 when he became a regular. By the start of the 2008/09 season, the owner of the number 10 shirt, Brazil legend Ronaldinho, had left the club and Messi was given the iconic shirt. The rest is history.
Messi would go on to break innumerable goalscoring records, he would win every club trophy available at least thrice and become one of the highest-paid athletes in the world today. Having scored more than 400 goals for the Catalan club since his breakthrough in 2004/05, Messi has won the Ballon d’Or a record four times and is a favourite to win his fifth in January 2016.
Ronaldinho told Messi to take his no.10 shirt
When Ronaldinho was on the decline and Barcelona on a downward spiral having won no trophies in 2007/08, the club decided to take action and the Brazilian was let go. Messi has always said that Ronaldinho had always helped him transition into the first team with ease.
“He [Ronaldinho] was a great help,” Messi had said. “It’s never easy to go into a changing room at the age of 16 especially with my character.”
In an interview with BarcaTV, Messi reveals how Ronaldinho had asked Messi to take his number before he left the Camp Nou.
“Before leaving the club [Ronaldinho] was coming off a few months where he was thinking about things,” Messi explained.
“He had it in his mind that he was leaving and he told me to have his number. I took it without looking at what he had done with the shirt. If I did, I would not have taken it.”
Ronaldinho and Messi have always shared a great friendship since their playing days. It was Ronaldinho who assisted Messi’s first goal in La Liga. He would go on to score 290 more in La Liga alone, becoming the league’s highest-ever goalscorer.
Messi recently sent Ronaldinho a signed no.10 Barca shirt, too.
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