Argentine soccer legend Lionel Messi affirmed during an interview on Wednesday that he considers his soccer success a combination of discipline and natural abilities, emphasizing his belief that God blessed him with that gift and expressing gratitude for it.
Speaking before the America Business Forum in Miami, where he has lived since joining the Inter Miami soccer team in 2023, Messi contended that gifts of talent were of little use without developing that talent, but that hard work without God would also not have led him to his outstanding career wins. Asked by moderator Francis Suárez, the mayor of Miami, whether champions were “born or made,” Messi began his answer with gratitude for God.
“I always said that God gave me a gift. He chose me, and since I was very little I was like this,” Messi explained. “I had it. But along the way I made many sacrifices, many efforts to strengthen that gift that I had because there are many people who have many conditions – always talking about football [soccer] – many conditions, people who are very good all over the world.”
“But to be professional you have to make a very big sacrifice and I always had it as a goal, I did everything possible to achieve it – but like I said in the beginning, I am grateful to God because he gave me the main thing,” Messi explained.
Messi is widely considered the best player in the sport of soccer, setting multiple records during his extensive career at the Barcelona soccer club and winning the World Cup along with the Argentine team in 2022. He has won the illustrious Ballon d’Or award eight times, an Olympic gold medal, and multiple regional and club global tournaments.
Throughout his career, Messi has developed a reputation as a family man and devout Catholic, repeatedly expressing gratitude to God for his successes. Messi met fellow Argentine Pope Francis during a visit to Rome in 2013, receiving a blessing alongside the country’s and Italy’s national teams.
Pope Francis, known as an avid soccer fan, once told an inquiring journalist that, while calling Messi a god was “in theory” sacrilege, but “people can say he is God, just as they may say ‘I adore you,’ but only God can be worshipped. Those are just things people say.”
In 2023, after Argentina won its third FIFA World Cup with him as captain, Messi said in an interview that, preceding the final victory, he had taken time to pray.
“I asked God, like it has always been in my whole life about everything,” Messi explained, “even more so in that moment.”
“I knew and could feel that God had something waiting for me and it was in a special moment, almost at the end of my career and closing the circle of my era as a professional. I thank him every day of my life, this and everything He has always given me. I can’t ask for more because thanks to Him I have it all.”
Last year, in a podcast interview with host Juan Pablo Varsky, Messi reiterated his belief that he had been blessed.
“I have it very clear that I was born like this because God chose me,” he said on that occasion. “This was the gift He gave me. I tried to make the most of it. I did everything possible to squeeze all the juice out of it. In truth, just as I did do a lot of things, I didn’t do anything to be the player who I was already when I was little.”
The America Business Forum is an annual event that describes itself as a meeting site for “the most influential voices in sports, entertainment, business, and global culture,” making their personal insights accessible to some of the general public through filmed events. Messi’s conversation with Suárez included more casual, personal observations; some of the events at the forum also consisted of more mainstream economic speeches. Among the speakers alongside Messi on Wednesday was President Donald Trump, who presented a positive image of his economic policy in the first ten months of his second term in office.
“In 9 months, we’ve lifted over 600,000 Americans off food stamps. 1.9 million more American-born workers are employed today… than when I took office… and we have more people working now than at any time in the HISTORY of our country,” Trump shared. “Since January, 100,000 bureaucrats have left the federal payroll; government spending is down 2.5 percent this quarter compared to one year ago.”
Expected to speak at the event on Friday are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, tennis champions Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal, and the president of Argentina, Javier Milei.
