Leo Messi

The photo-sharing site released its year-end data Dec. 1 showing the 24-year-old pop star has the most followers of any celebrity (103 million) and was responsible for nearly all of the most-liked celebrity posts in 2016. 

A standing dispute among football fans across the world is which goal was better: Argentina’s Diego Maradona second goal against England in the 1996 World Cup or Barcelona’s Leo Messi against Getafe in the Spanish Primera Division. Both were almost identical in their sheer brilliance, which why it so hard to separate them. But maybe one more contender has been added to the list.

It is an undeniable fact that football is the most popular sport in the world. The FIFA World Cup is the most watched sporting event after the Olympic Games. Names like Leo Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo are household to people from Papua New Guinea to the smallest town in Congo.

A young Afghan boy, who captured the hearts of millions when he was pictured wearing a plastic bag he had turned into a Lionel Messi shirt, he received a signed jersey from the Barcelona football star.

Murtaza Ahmadi, 5, attracted global attention when a picture emerged of him playing football wearing a blue and white plastic bag with Messi’s name and number written on the back.