FC Barcelona legend and current Inter Miami star Lionel Messi has been deemed to be intellectually gifted by an expert on the matter, Jana Martinez-Piqueras, who made her claims to MARCA.
That the Argentine is a genius with the ball, which he showed signs of from an early age at Newell’s Old Boys before joining Barca’s La Masia academy at the turn of the Millennium, is clear to everyone.
According to Martinez-Piqueras, though, who describes herself as an expert on the topic, Messi is also considered to boast what is known as ‘altas capacidades’ in Spanish, which can be translated as gifted intellectual capacities.
“Yes, it is believed that Messi can be [considered] a person with a high intellectual capacity,” she confirmed to Madrid-based newspaper MARCA.
“Historically these people have always been associated with a number, a test result, a high IQ. But this is a completely obsolete paradigm. At the level of science, it is no longer sustainable,” added the president of Indifferent Minds.
Martinez-Piqueras explains how many in her field believe Messi fits the concept of being a genius in the way he designs plays and makes exact calculations on what to do with the ball.
“It’s clear that he has multiple cognitive abilities combined. And then there is the most important thing: Messi, like people with highly gifted capacities, changes the environment in which he intervenes.
“If anyone thinks that everything Messi did on the pitch is because he rotates his ankle very well, they are wrong”.
Martinez-Piqueras lamented that there are a lot of people with a gifted intellectual capacity that go undetected, many of whom are sportspersons.
“There are a lot of athletes with high ability that go undetected, excellent athletes who have not been taught the cognitive part. And what you don’t work on, becomes extinct,” she said.
As his sport’s most decorated player in terms of silverware, who has also won its highest individual accolade the Ballon d’Or a record seven times, Messi has thankfully been able to fulfil his potential and then some on the field.
Now aged 36, he will retire in the coming years considered one of the greatest – if not the greatest – player to ever lace up a pair of boots.
