Which player made you fall in love with football?

I will take the downvotes and say what may be considered the lamest response possible here: Leo Messi.

It was more like he made me fall in love again. Well, I was born loving football, there was really no getting around it. Of course I watched Cruyff and worshipped him (still do, he is the person associated with football I most admire, by far). But years of living abroad, watching the Eredivisie self-destruct, and the national team lose in 2010 and then embark on a campaign of truly confusing play, I thought I was just over it -- that I outgrew it.

In 2014 the World Cup changed that. Watching the 5PA1N match, it was like flipping a switch -- it still stands out as one of my favorite football experiences of all time. Blind to Van Persie is the moment my heart went back to football. During the tournament, I started watching Leo Messi more because I happen to be around a lot of Argentines (who, ironically, didn't seem to like him all that much). I don't live on the bottom of the Mariana Trench, so I had seen him play before and always thought he was good, but this is the first time I watched every minute of every game he played.

When Messi took that penalty against us, cold as ice, while we were in a chaos of nerves I really started to pay attention. After the WC, I thought I'd catch some Barcelona matches to watch Messi and also Mascherano who had impressed me. And holy shit did I fall down the rabbit hole again. I still can't really say I am a "fan" of Barcelona, I've only been watching regularly for a few years now, but that is some good football. Being able to watch someone who might be the very best at what they do, in their prime, is a real gift and I am just trying to get as much as I can. I like to think so much of what makes Barcelona in general, and Messi in particular, great actually came from Cruyff. It fills me with national pride that he took the Dutch grassroots system and build this incredible juggernaut with everything he new. I'm sorry that the Dutch league seems to have worse memory than a club in Spain.

/r/soccer Thread