Lionel Messi has revealed how Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho and other senior Barcelona players helped him overcome the nerves and uncertainty he experienced when he entered the club’s first-team dressing room at just 16.
The Inter Miami forward recalled the experience during a meeting with students in Oviedo, Spain, where he shared lessons from his remarkable career ahead of receiving the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports.
Despite his extraordinary talent, Messi admitted that joining a dressing room filled with established football stars was intimidating. The Argentine described himself as naturally shy and said he initially struggled to feel comfortable around players he had previously admired from a distance.
Among those senior figures were Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o, Xavi and Carles Puyol, who were important members of Barcelona’s squad during the early stages of Messi’s development.
“I had to walk into a first-division dressing room packed with stars when I was just 16. I was nervous,” Messi recalled.
He explained that his personality made it difficult to settle quickly into the environment, even though football had been central to his life since childhood.
The advice from his teammates was straightforward: stop worrying about the reputations of the players around him and concentrate on enjoying the game.
Messi said they encouraged him to forget the pressure of the situation and continue doing what he had always done on the pitch, focusing on the football he loved rather than thinking about who was standing beside him.
That encouragement came at a crucial stage in his career. Messi had joined Barcelona’s youth system after moving from Argentina to Spain as a teenager, and his promotion to the senior side placed him alongside some of the biggest names in European football.
Ronaldinho, in particular, played an important role in helping the youngster feel welcome. The Brazilian was Barcelona’s leading star when Messi began making his way into the first team, and the pair developed a close relationship during their time together at the club.
Ronaldinho’s confidence in Messi’s potential was also remarkable. According to Guillem Balagué’s biography of the Argentine, the Brazilian once contacted journalist Cristina Cubero after training with the teenager and predicted that he would become a better player than himself.
The pair shared the pitch during an important period in Barcelona’s history. Ronaldinho helped restore the club’s standing among Europe’s elite, while Messi gradually developed from a promising teenager into the team’s defining player.
Their time together did not last long, as Ronaldinho left Barcelona for AC Milan in 2008. By then, however, Messi had begun establishing himself as one of the club’s most exciting talents.
The Argentine eventually became Barcelona’s all-time leading goalscorer, winning four Champions League titles and 10 La Liga championships during his senior career with the Spanish club.
Messi also used his appearance in Oviedo to discuss another lesson football had taught him: learning how to accept defeat.
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner said players should understand that disappointment is an unavoidable part of sport. Although the desire to win remains important, he argued that effort and commitment should also matter when judging a performance.
Messi drew on difficult experiences from his career, including Argentina’s defeat to Germany in the 2014 World Cup final and unsuccessful Champions League campaigns, to explain why players must learn from setbacks rather than allow them to define their careers.
He stressed that accepting defeat does not mean becoming comfortable with losing. Instead, players should recognise that failure is possible, assess what went wrong and continue working towards their goals.
The lesson reflects the different stages of Messi’s career. His journey included years of international disappointment before Argentina won the Copa América in 2021 and the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
Those achievements helped complete his collection of major international honours and reinforced his status as one of football’s most decorated players.
Now continuing his career with Inter Miami, Messi is also using his experiences to encourage younger generations to approach football with confidence, patience and enjoyment.
His recollection of Ronaldinho’s guidance offers a reminder that even players who eventually reach the highest level can experience uncertainty at the beginning of their careers. For Messi, the encouragement to ignore the pressure and enjoy the game helped him settle into an environment that would become the starting point of an extraordinary football journey.
