Lionel Messi

Soccer legend Lionel Messi entered the greatest-of-all-time conversation long before his Barcelona tenure ended. Since that career midpoint, he has kept adding to his cupboard of trophies and scrapbook of outrageous goals for roughly another decade, cementing his status as arguably the best-ever player.

The tail end of the Argentina star’s career has filled the final missing pieces of his historic catalogue, with the forward winning two Copa América titles and a World Cup after turning 33.

Soft-spoken as Messi might seem, the fan base that has followed him from Barcelona to PSG to Inter Miami has projected more than enough enthusiasm to keep him near the center of popular culture worldwide, including accumulating more than 500 million followers on Instagram. As a result, he is well-compensated by sponsorship deals, and his arrival in the U.S. burnished his marketing power among English-speaking supporters.

Messi’s legacy in the U.S. will likely relate more to how he helped grow soccer interest in the country than how he used his still-entrancing on-field skills. He signed with Inter Miami three years before North America hosts the 2026 World Cup—set to be a defining moment for the future of soccer in the U.S.—and stakeholders are hopeful his presence will prompt another spike in passion for the sport.