Oriol Riera on growing up at La Masia and being Messi's roommate. "If someone told me at that time that Messi would one day be the best player in the world, we would’ve laughed and said it was false."
"I joined FC Barcelona when I was 10 and moved away from my family to a place that wasn't my home, so my life completely changed just to improve and to fulfill my dream to play in LaLiga."
For kids all over Spain and Latin America, a move to Barcelona's La Masia academy was the dream. But it wasn't easy. The routine for the kids was gruelling and required self-discipline and maturity well beyond their years.
Whilst, in many ways, La Masia is the perfect place for technical development and it was here that Riera also learnt important life lessons. For a club whose motto reads "mes que un club" – that is, more than a club – the emphasis of character development was more important than anything else.
"The focus principally was to teach people to be a good man, to have good character and be a good, solid person," he said.
"If you are not a good man, if you are not a good person, and don’t have a good character, you might be the best player at other clubs, but not at Barcelona. After that, they taught us to play hard, to love the game and to love life every day."
Even with all Barcelona had to offer, it was still difficult to make it to the top.
"They have great facilities and we played in the best tournaments in the world, so we had all the capabilities to become a great player. But I have many friends from La Masia who aren't footballers, only 1 in 100 make it to LaLiga. It's very difficult."
Whilst that ratio may be true in other parts of Spain, it certainly isn't at Barcelona. Indeed, some of his 'friends' – Gerard Pique and Lionel Messi – did make it. His recalls his relationship with the Argentine, in particular, with whom he spent many years with at the Nou Camp.
The pair were roommates too, and although Messi often had little to say, Riera laughs when he recounts the numerous hours the two of them would spend gossiping about particular teenage love interests.
"Pique and Messi are the best players in their positions, but for me they are normal people that like the things we all like and enjoy," he says. "In the past, I spent three years with Messi in the under 19s and then the second team and the first team, we went up and down. He was also my roommate so we spent a lot of time together.
"We spoke about a lot of things, a lot of it about girls because at that time, I was 17 and Messi was 16 and we liked to talk about that.
"He had two characters: off the field he was very calm, very quiet, he doesn’t like talking too much. On the field, he was different, he was the best player, had the ability to get the ball, hold the ball and had all the skills."
Despite the talent, Riera insists if he had been told Messi would one day become the greatest player ever, he would have dismissed it without hesitation.
"If someone told me at that time that Messi would one day be the best player in the world, possibly ever, it would’ve been a surprise, we would’ve laughed and said it was false. We knew that Messi would be a player in the first-team and a good player, but not like this. In that moment, it was impossible to believe it.
"At the moment, he is the best player and I think in 50 years, we will talk about Messi as the best player in the history of football. There is no doubt about this."
even his name is awesome