Cesc Fabregas has explained how Lionel Messi amazed him and his Barcelona teammates during his first training session with the club.
Messi joined the Catalan club’s La Masia academy as a 13-year-old in 2000, moving to the city from Argentina and joining a youth team that was populated with talents from Spain and predominantly from the region of Catalonia.
The Argentine would spend the following 21 years of his career at the club, where he would go on to establish himself as a superstar and arguably the greatest footballer of all time. Messi became the highest appearance holder and top goal scorer in Barca’s illustrious history.
Messi was in the same age group as Fabregas, who is one month older than the Argentine. It was the same ‘1987 born’ youth team which included Gerard Pique as a central defender and which also included Franck Songo’o, who would enjoy a long and successful career in professional football.
Yet despite all the talent in the side, including Pique and Fabregas – who would go on to establish themselves as two of the greatest La Masia graduates of all time and who enjoyed plenty of success at club and international level – Messi stood out as the star among stars from his first training session after joining the club.
Speaking on the new BBC documentary Messi , Fabregas recalls of that day: "The first training session we had with Leo, I was playing a bit more of a defensive midfielder and we were doing this one-against-one exercise.
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"In my head, I'm thinking that I'm going to get the ball easy from him, because I like to go on the floor and I like to tackle, but then I was seeing that the speed was not normal. I was already shocked, because I remember falling on the floor. I lost ability and he scored."
Fabregas added that this was the moment that he and his teammates started to think that "we need to take this boy seriously."
Messi made a club record 778 first-team appearances for Barca – 11 more than previous club captain and record-holder Xavi Hernandez – while scoring 672 goals for the club, which is not only the highest figure but more than the second highest scorer, third highest and fourth highest combined.
