Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest player of our generation has been through some major hairstyle changes. Long-time viewers know that Lionel Messi once had long hair or hair length big enough to cover his entire forehead.
In 2009, Lionel Messi was first seen with medium or short hair. The real reason for him getting a haircut is speculated that Messi wanted to keep up with the trending hairstyles.
19 years ago today, a 17-year-old Lionel Messi made his Barcelona debut in LALIGA 👶
The rest is history ❤️🏆 pic.twitter.com/w4BHGzqzdi
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 16, 2023
Even though the long hairstyles made a comeback. Since 2011, Messi has not been seen with long hair because they were out of fashion. He even admitted that sometimes maintaining long hair during matches was becoming quite some burden.
Lionel Messi has constantly changed his hairstyles and fans have fond memories of Leo’s other haircuts. But two of the most iconic moments came during the “long hair Messi” era. These include his towering header against Manchester United in 2011 and the famous ‘Ankara Messi’ run in 2007 against Getafe.
Is Lionel Messi’s hair natural?
Messi was initially seen with black hair. But over time as soon as his beard started to grow, fans started noticing a change. There was a certain ginger coloring to the beard. This caused many to wonder whether or not Messi’s hair was natural or not.
Apart from changing his hair to blond in 2016, Lionel Messi doesn’t dye his hair or his beard. The subtle ginger coloring is due to a specific pairing of genes.
Messi spotted in blonde hair in today’s training session 👀
Inspired by Neymar ? https://t.co/zMFserxGZ7 pic.twitter.com/pBbsIrulec
— Gavi szn (@gavi_szn_) January 25, 2023
Messi is naturally brunette and even at 36 years of age, there are no signs of baldness on his head. This clearly shows that Lionel Messi’s hair is indeed natural. Messi is also known not to use any products that could potentially harm his hair.
Lionel Messi is a natural brunette and has brown-black hair as can be seen after his dye wore off in 2017.
Evolution of Lionel Messi’s hair over the years
2005- Lionel Messi was slowly breaking into the first team by this point and had a modest medium hair. During this time he usually had a long mop and a fluffy mullet, all variations from his long hair.
Evolution hairstyles Messi. pic.twitter.com/9xf5sfor6J
— Zhenya (@evamoroz44) August 15, 2014
2007– In his breakout season, Messi was seen famously wearing a headband even though that hairstyle did not stick, he preferred to go back to his old ways.
2009– Messi went back to medium hair and had one of the best seasons of his career for which he got the Ballon d’Or.
2010– During this time Messi experimented with all he could as he brought back his old hairstyles at different parts of the season. He even featured in a few matches with a headband.
2011– From this point onwards, Lionel Messi started becoming a youth icon and style phenomenon as his clean-cut hair sent terrors down the spine of opposition defenders.
2013– During this time, the quiff hairstyle was in fashion and the Argentine superstar went with it. Fair to say by this point the La Masia graduate had come a long way in terms of both playing abilities and hairstyles.
2014– Fans thoroughly believe to this day that during this stage, Messi had the best hairstyle.
2016– Known as the rebellious phase, during this time Messi dyed his hair blond and added tattoos. Though many fans were excited by this new look some faithful wanted to see their old idol back.
2018-Entering into his thirties, Messi dyed back his hair and went for a mature cut that would complement his full-grown beard.
2022- With no significant change between the years, Lionel Messi did manage to add a few tweaks to his style as during the World Cup he featured with clean cut with shaved sides and back.
Lionel Messi’s hairstyle has gone through some bizarre changes and it can be expected that the World Cup-winning captain ain’t going to make any new changes to his current hairstyle.