Lionel Messi is the idol of many upcoming football stars, but the FC Barcelona superstar's own hero has now seemingly been revealed.
The Argentine, who turned 33 on Tuesday, has played alongside many great players, but his countryman Juan Roman Riquelme was the footballer he admired the most, according to his former agent.
With Riquelme being at Barcelona when Messi broke into the first team, Josip Minguella recently recalled an incident that showed how much the young the then-teenager admired his countryman.
"Sometimes Leo would come around for a barbecue and I remember one time when Riquelme, (Fabio) Rochemback, (Thiago) Motta and some other players came, and I can still see Messi sitting at the bottom of the table looking at Riquelme as if he were Jesus Christ," Minguella wrote in a column for SPORT.
"For him, Riquelme was his great idol, he was left-footed and played in the No. 10 position in Barcelona's first team.
"However, Leo would only look at him because he was very shy, you had to force words out of him."
Messi and Riquelme were also teammates at international level, and won Olympic gold together at the 2008 Games.
