MOSCOW, Jul 15 2006 world champion in the Italian national football team Alessandro Del Piero shared his memories of the game against 17-year-old Lionel Messi, from which he remained in admiration. Del Piero played against the Argentine in 2005 in a pre-season friendly match between Juventus and Barcelona. Messi was just starting to play for the Blue Garnet first team and Del Piero was the captain of Juventus. I had the opportunity to play against him. It was funny. At half-time I talked about him with my teammates: «Look, this guy is incredible. I even tried to hit him to knock him down, but I didn’t succeed. It was very it's beautiful to see even at such an early age,» Del Piero told ESPN. Messi made his debut for the Barcelona first team in 2004. Together with the Catalan club, the Argentine won the Spanish Championship ten times and the Spanish Cup seven times, and also won the Champions League four times. Messi is Barcelona's record holder for the number of official matches played (778) and goals scored (672).
