not just any sport.

Football is a beautiful sport. Not only because it is the most viewed sport in the world. Not only because it generates a lot of money. Not only because it's entertaining and not only because in every little corner of the world we can encounter young boys and grown men and women in love with the idea of a football spinning in the air and falling on our feet.

It has the power to join continents, countries and people from every culture and context, with a common passion. All of this makes football pretty, but not beautiful. Football is beautiful, at least in my experience, because being one of the most simple sports one can play, it achieves all of this at once.

It is a pure expression of the human spirit. And as every pure expression of human spirit, it has generated wars, hatred, division, pain, and sadness. But it  has also paved the way for miracles.

I don't trust those people who say that football is a weapon to control the masses. A weapon to numb the society and make it addicted to bread and circus, while the people in power enjoy world dominance.

I don't trust those people, because those people have not experienced what I did.

In the 4 years that sit between 2008 and 2012, I was lucky to witness the best football team in history. A fantastic and superb team, that transcended the barriers of what football meant and means to me, achieving miracles in every match and inspiring in unimaginable ways to everyone who would stop 2 seconds to watch.

This team was the Fútbol Club Barcelona. And its indisputed protagonist was Lionel Messi.

Barcelona was always a big club, but unlike other big clubs, Barcelona wasn't big for the things it had won, but rather, for its philosophy, for its form of playing and understanding the game. The way Barcelona players moved the ball through the field mesmerized even the most cynic critics of the sport. Everyone who watched them play could agree on one thing: They were good, and they were beautiful. This is what football was made for.

I have been part of a generation who chose Messi as an example, as a boy in which we could identify ourselves. A little boy, from a little neighbourhood, who could grab a ball with both feet and make miracles. A David in a world of Goliaths. A boy who was saying to every one of us; you, like me, can do it.

I don't believe football is just a sport. Because football taught me to live, to breathe, and to love. Football taught me dreams are achievable.