Messi, and despite their stick at times, Barcelona hold a special place in my heart. Nothing to do with on the pitch things, but a little story that will always live with me.
Few years back friends of mine were organising a cancer fundraiser for a type of cancer my daughter had and was suffering at the time. She was just over a year old then.
They wrote to several football clubs asking for things to raffle and auction.
Liverpool, Celtic and Barca were particularly generous. Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal didn't reply which is fair enough, they get lots of requests
Barcelona - they sent a hand written letter which I still have, with hats, school equipment, pecncils, rulers, notebooks stationary sets etc, and signed framed photo of Messi which stated it was personally signed.
Whether it was or not I don't know, but if it was genuine, what a brilliant thing to do.
So I class him as my mate now