If Ballon d’Or voters are in fact judging the biggest performances on the biggest stage, I hope they watch Messi’s full World Cup body of work side by side with the other top candidates.
Goals and assists are only part of the story. Argentina’s entire attack flowed through Messi - progression, chance creation, line breaking passes, dribbles, combinations, etc. Even goals where he didn’t get the final assist but was very much involved in creating the sequence. Watch the full video and then tell me what you see.
#Messi #BallondOr #BallondOr2026
Apply for jobs, apply for scholarships, apply to further your studies. Go to the interviews, complete the assessments, do it for the plot. Opportunities favor those in motion.
Yes, those photos you’ve seen are real.
More than 18 years ago, a baby named Lamine Yamal and his mom Sheila met Lionel Messi at a UNICEF fundraising photoshoot.
Today, their achievements on the pitch inspire millions. Off the pitch, both Messi and Lamine Yamal use their voices and platforms as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors to support and advocate for children around the world.
The goal? That every child survives, thrives, and fulfils their potential.
We are proud to have them on our team.
Credit: Joan Monfort
If you live around Ijebu Òde and Akilẹ Ijebu (the 6 Ijebu LGAs), you can call this number {0700 700 7770} when you have/notice any security concerns. Save and share.
The number is the Ijebu Security Hotline which connects people in distress directly to the security agencies; Police, DSS, ARMY, AMOTEKUN, NSCDC.
The Ijebu Security Hotline is a privately funded Initiative by the IDERA FOUNDATION. It is powered by Chief Okubadejo @Dapo_Okubadejo and other Ijebu sons & daughters.
I am fighting to get:
1. 25/35% outstanding arrears paid.
2. House officers Professional Allowances implemented.
3. Promotion arrears for doctors in 60 hospitals across the country over a period of 5 years paid.
4. Salary arrears in UUTH Uyo, FMC Owo, FUHSTH Otukpo, OAUTHc Ile Ife ranging from 4 months to 22 months paid.
Collective Bargaining that the FG set up to renegotiate Doctors and Health Workers Salaries has been stalled
So yes, Don’t ask what doctors earn monthly.
Rather, ask what our politicians earn monthly.
Ask if there is any elected official that is owed 20 months salary arrears.
Ask why?
Then ask how many Doctors left the shores of Nigeria in 2025. It was >4,500 in 2024.
In fact, the question to ask is how come we still have doctors in Nigeria?
In medical school, we are taught a golden rule: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." It is a reminder to look for the common explanation before the exotic one. But after decades in cardiology, I’ve learned that if a patient is still suffering after the "horses" have been ruled out, a doctor must have the courage—and the curiosity—to go hunting for the zebra.
Sarah was a thirty-four-year-old marathon runner and a devoted mother who came to me after six months of being told she was "fine." She had been bounced from one specialist to another, each one pointing to her normal EKG and standard blood tests as proof that her crushing fatigue and racing heart were simply the result of "new mom stress." By the time she reached my office, she didn't just look tired; she looked invisible, as if the medical system had stopped seeing the woman and only saw the data.
Instead of re-reading the normal test results that had already failed her, I asked Sarah to walk me through her life. We talked about her training and her family, eventually landing on a backpacking trip she took to the Mendoza province of rural Argentina. She described staying in a charming, rustic cottage made of sun-dried mud bricks. She mentioned waking up one morning with a strangely swollen, purple eyelid that she assumed was a simple spider bite.
As she spoke, a memory surfaced from a biography I had read years ago about Charles Darwin. Most people know Darwin for his theories on evolution, but medical historians have long puzzled over the mysterious, debilitating illness that plagued him for decades after he returned from his voyage on the HMS Beagle. Darwin had written in his journals about being bitten by the "great black bug of the Pampas" while sleeping in mud-walled huts in South America. He spent the rest of his life suffering from heart palpitations and exhaustion that the Victorian doctors of his time could never explain.
I realized then that Sarah wasn't suffering from stress; she was likely hosting the same "silent killer" that may have haunted Darwin: Chagas Disease.
The "Kissing Bug" lives in the cracks of those mud-brick walls. It bites its victims—often near the eyes or mouth—while they sleep, passing a parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi into the blood. The danger of Chagas is that the initial symptoms disappear quickly, but the parasite can hide in the body for years, slowly weaving itself into the muscle and electrical "wiring" of the heart.
To confirm this, I moved beyond the standard tests. I ordered a specialized "Strain Rate" ultrasound, which doesn't just look at whether the heart is pumping, but at how the individual muscle fibers are stretching. We saw that while her heart looked strong to the naked eye, the fibers were "stuttering," a sign of early parasite-induced scarring. A specific blood test for the parasite's antibodies confirmed the diagnosis.
Treatment required a difficult, sixty-day course of anti-parasitic medication to stop the infection, paired with a protective heart regimen to keep her electrical system stable while the inflammation settled. Because we caught it before her heart was physically damaged or enlarged, the recovery was a success.
Months later, Sarah returned to my office, her vibrant energy restored. She brought me a leather-bound copy of The Voyage of the Beagle with a note tucked inside. She wrote that while other doctors had looked at her charts, I had looked at her. This case remains a vital reminder for my memoir: in a world of high-tech scans and AI, the most sophisticated diagnostic tool we possess is still the human story. When we truly listen, we don't just find the disease—we find the patient.
Good morning.