TIME Athlete of the Year 2023 | Lionel Messi - video Dailymotion

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TIME Athlete of the Year 2023 | Lionel Messi

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00:00 (crowd chanting)

00:02 - Lionel Messi is Times Athlete of the Year

00:07 over several excellent candidates.

00:10 The reason Messi stands out is because of the football fever

00:15 that he brought to the United States

00:18 and really to the world throughout the year.

00:21 Messi's had better statistical years than 2023,

00:24 but starting late last year,

00:26 he won his first ever World Cup.

00:29 - Story, we cannot stop talking about the World Cup final.

00:32 It lived up to the hype and then some.

00:34 - It was a crowning achievement

00:36 of Lionel Messi's singular career.

00:39 And since that time, everything he's done

00:41 has just been incrementally more important

00:44 and more relevant to sports fans around the world.

00:47 - It's over, the first ever League's Cup champions

00:51 are Lionel Messi and the Divide.

00:54 - So let's just talk about his on-field ability.

00:59 He's like 5'6", 5'7".

01:00 He's not a huge guy, but that hasn't stopped him at all.

01:04 His left foot is magical.

01:05 He'll see passing angles that nobody else sees.

01:07 He'll know where the ball is going before anybody else does.

01:10 He kind of approaches the game like a game of chess,

01:12 always moving and thinking.

01:14 And he's an unselfish player.

01:15 He's always threading the needle with beautiful passes.

01:18 Throughout his career,

01:19 he set the standard of excellence on the field,

01:22 and that's pretty influential.

01:23 There's a lot of kids around the world that play soccer.

01:26 Many of, if not most of them, are trying to play like Messi.

01:29 Messi is the standard.

01:31 - Breaking news, Lionel Messi set to leave PSG

01:35 at the end of the current season.

01:37 - After his contract ran out in Paris Saint-Germain,

01:40 there was all this talk about where Lionel Messi would play.

01:44 Would he stay in Paris?

01:46 Would he go to Barcelona, the club that signed him

01:49 when he was just a 13-year-old boy?

01:51 Would he take more than a billion dollars, reportedly,

01:54 from a team in Saudi Arabia?

01:56 He kind of defied a lot of expectations

01:58 by signing with Inter Miami,

02:01 which at the time was a last place club

02:04 in major league soccer, but more relevantly,

02:07 isn't thought of by world soccer fans

02:10 as one of the top leagues in the world.

02:12 - It's a new era for American soccer.

02:15 - Si, muchacho.

02:16 Nos vemos en Miami.

02:17 - The impact was he's changed forever

02:20 the trajectory of soccer in America,

02:22 which is just one country in the world,

02:24 but also happens to be the biggest commercial sports market

02:27 on the planet.

02:28 - Tickets for Tuesday night's game sold out in minutes.

02:31 - The most expensive major league soccer game ever.

02:35 - When Messi came here and the way he came here,

02:38 he just captivated soccer fans and non-soccer fans alike.

02:42 - Messi!

02:43 - He scored 10 goals in his first seven games

02:46 in Inter Miami, scoring in the final of the League's Cup,

02:49 which helped put the game into penalty kicks

02:51 and give Inter Miami that championship.

02:54 - It is Messi's moment.

02:55 It is Messi's night.

02:57 - He was so big that the media partner of MLS, Apple,

03:02 decided we're gonna give him a cut

03:04 of every additional subscription we get to our service

03:08 because he's here.

03:09 - Messi is here.

03:10 - The day before Messi played his first game in Miami,

03:14 Apple signed about 6,000 new subscribers.

03:18 The day of his debut,

03:19 over 100,000 people signed up for Apple TV+.

03:23 And you just see it.

03:25 Lionel Messi, he comes to New York,

03:27 everybody has a Messi jersey.

03:28 In Miami, everybody just wants to be around him.

03:30 (crowd cheering)

03:33 - Messi!

03:35 Messi!

03:37 - Soccer has grown here.

03:38 It's become more popular.

03:39 European league games are broadcast here.

03:42 Kids talk about their favorite players overseas.

03:44 So it's not to say that soccer in the US

03:47 hasn't been on the upswing,

03:48 but the growth is gonna be accelerated now.

03:51 The interest is gonna be accelerated now.

03:53 All because of one person.

03:55 - Messi!

03:56 (crowd cheering)

03:58 Couldn't have been any other way!

04:03 (upbeat music)

04:05 (upbeat music)

TIME Athlete of the Year 2023 | Lionel Messi

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