best athlete on the planet right now! (with all due respect to Cristiano Ronaldo, Usain Bolt, and any US athlete you want to throw into the mix) Certainly the best player in the most popular sport in the world. He just became the first player to score five goals in a champions league game. His recent hat trick (18th of his career, also a record) just put him atop the storied Barcelona's all time scoring record with 234. His 54 goals this season set the mark in La Liga/Spain - and he still has 13 more games to play.

And he is the same age as Matt Stafford, 24, and as humble as Barry Sanders!

Add a World Cup for Argentina and Messi will be mentioned in the same sentance as Pele and Maradona...

Spot on Pablo, the guy is pretty incredible.

The only blot on his ressume is his (relative) failure on the international stage. Having said that, at the last world cup he was managed by Maradona and there were rumours he was deliberately playing a system to make Messi look bad, so he could continue to lay claim to being Argentina's best ever player.