• DIMENSIONS: 34 x 23.5
• Wrinkle-resistant matte paper used by poster company
• A veritable who’s who of professional soccer, c. 2006
• The ultimate gift for a soccer fan
• Sent in PVC pipe for top protection

Product Description
Got a soccer fan in the house? Someone who knows his way around the European leagues and World Cup? Here’s the ultimate gift for them. Here’s a great poster with a boy and some of the more-famous soccer players in the world at the time of the 2006 World Cup, including Zinedine Zidane, Lionel Messi, and the omnipresent David Beckham. Probably commercial rather than promotional in origin (i.e. originally taken for an Adidas ad but picked up by poster companies). Don’t… More >>

Soccer Who’s Who POSTER 34 x 23.5 Kid Circled By David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Kaka, Lampard, Lionel Messi, Others from 2006

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Lionel Andrés Messi (born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine footballer who currently plays for La Liga’s Barcelona and the Argentine national team. Messi is considered to be one of the best football players of his generation, having received several Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations by the age of 21. His playing style and ability have drawn comparisons to football legend Diego Maradona, who himself dec… More >>

Lionel Messi: Association football, La Liga, Ballon d’Or, FIFA World Player of the Year, Diego Maradona, Rosario, Santa Fe, Growth hormone deficiency, … Liga, Football records in Spain, The Double

Read more on CBC.ca via Yahoo! Canada Sports

As you’ve probably heard by now, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi has won the 2009 Ballon d’Or for being the European Footballer of the Year. Not only is he the first Argentinean to win the prestigious award (up until 1995 only European footballers playing for European clubs were eligible, thus explaining why Diego Maradona never won in his day), but he also won it by a record margin — scoring a near perfect 473 out of 480 possible points in the voting, 240 more than 2008 Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo.
So for those of you wondering just what the diminutive maestro did to deserve such an honor, or anyone craving another taste of the magic, here’s a video that gives a small sample of why this was such an easy decision.

Source Article : http://sportprovider.byethost3.com/euro-footballer-of-the-year-lionel-messi

Born in 1987, he signed for Barcelona from Newell’s Old Boys of Argentina at 13 years of age, and since that time Messi has been marked for super stardom. But for a niggling succession of injuries, he surely would have been a Ballon D’Or winner by now.

What has always singled out ‘Leo’ as being special is his ability to dribble at speed with the ball under perfect control. Although primarily a winger, he can play more central or even deeper but, whatever his position, when he has the ball at his feet, the fans always expect something special from him.
Since scoring his first league goal for Barça in May, 2005 Messi has become a talisman for the team – his modest attitude off the pitch and his constant praising of the work of his team mates ensuring that the fans always hold him in the highest esteem.

Life wasn’t always easy for Messi, though, despite his prodigious talent. As a youngster, Lionel suffered from a growth preventing hormonal disorder – Barcelona helped tempt him to Spain by paying for his medical treatment. This short stature, ironically, has enabled Leo to have that low centre of gravity that enables him to weave through defences.

Despite being wooed by the Spanish national team, Messi has always been eager to represent the country of his birth – he was voted player of the tournament in the Under 20 World Cup in 2005, where he was also top goal scorer. In the 2007 Copa America he was voted young player of the tournament. He was not afraid to let it be known how desperate he was to represent Argentina in the 2008 Olympic Games and although Barcelona appeared reluctant at first to release him, he ultimately helped Argentina win the gold medal – creating the only goal of the final in the process.

Playing for the national team hasn’t brought constant success, however. On his international debut, against Hungary in 2005, Messi came on as substitute in the second half and was sent off 40 seconds later – allegedly elbowing the defender who was tugging his shirt to hold him back. Then, in the 2006 World Cup, Pekerman, the coach, was the subject of immense criticism from fans because of his seeming reluctance to play Messi in what was, for the Argentines, a disappointing tournament.

And those Maradona comparisons? Well, the great man himself did say at one point that Messi was his natural heir. And if you want to see a carbon copy of the ‘hand of God’ goal then search on You Tube for Messi’s ‘goal’ in June, 2007 – against Espanyol in a local derby, would you believe!

While you’re there, though, remind yourself as well of the goal against Getafe in the Copa del Rey, when the little maestro picked the ball up and ran through just about the whole team to round the keeper and score. If that doesn’t bring back memories of Maradona then nothing will.

Despite the comparisons, Lionel Messi isn’t the second Maradona. A modest, cool-headed, softly-spoken personality, Lionel Messi never seems to find himself in the gossip columns. Instead, he just gets on with the job of trying to be as good a footballer as he can be: and that is as good as any forward player in the world game.

Lionel Messi is a great player in his own right. And he can only get better.