Lionel Messi Suggests Son Thiago Has Little Interest in Football

Lionel Messi may have taken football to a whole new level over the course of his career, but there's still one person he's yet to convert to the beautiful game: his three-year-old son, Thiago Messi.

The Barcelona superstar told Argentinian TV show Polemica en el Bar (h/t Goal's Dejan Kalinic): "I don't buy him many balls or force him to play with them because he doesn't like them that much."

That Messi's son is not—for the time being at least—enamoured with the sport draws an interesting parallel with his father's great rival, Cristiano Ronaldo, whose own son did not appear to be overly interested in Real Madrid's 7-1 thrashing of Celta Vigo last season despite his old man bagging four goals, per Sky Sports News HQ:

Football has seen a number of sons follow their fathers into the game, with mixed results.

Leicester City goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel replicated dad Peter's feat of winning his first Premier League title aged 29 last season, while the likes of Jordi Cruyff and Paolo Maldini also emulated their fathers, Johan and Cesare respectively.

Per Kalinic, Barcelona are setting up an avenue for their players' children to get into football. Messi said of his son's possible participation: "Let's see if he gets hooked that way, it would be a good start."

Thus far in his career, the 29-year-old has scored over 500 combined goals for club and country, collected five Ballons d'Or, won LaLiga eight times and triumphed in the UEFA Champions League four times.

No pressure, Thiago.