Lionel Messi is considered to be the best player in the world when it comes to football and now he has a golden boot to prove it, literally.
According to the Associated Press, a pure gold replication of Lionel Messi's left foot was unveiled on Wednesday in Tokyo by a local jeweler. The report says that the Barcelona forward's left foot was replicated in gold and designed by Japanese jeweler Ginza Tanaka to honor his achievements.
The foot weighs 55-pounds and is valued at $5.25 million and will be sold on Thursday to benefit the Leo Messi Foundation, which helps children at risk around the world. The jeweler cast the foot of Messi in Spain last year during his run to scoring the most goals of all time in one year.
''It's exceptional. You can see each line in the foot,'' said Messi's brother, Rodrigo. ''It's an impressive piece of work.''
The foot will be sold with a range of other artifacts that are gold, including Messi's golden footprint worth $94,500 and the ''Golden Foot Mini,'' which is half the size of the actual golden foot, worth $42,000.
''We loved the sound of making the 'golden left foot,' and it being gold, it was our goal to make the project of recreating Messi's left foot a reality,'' said Masakazu Tanaka, president of the company that made the piece.
The proceeds from the sales will go towards Messi's foundation, who will support children that were affected by the earthquake and tsunami disaster that hit Japan in March 2011. Messi has won the FIFA player of the year four times, something no one else has ever done.
Barcelona is set to play Deportivo La Coruña at Estadio Camp Nou in La Liga play before facing AC Milan in the Champions League Round of 16. Messi and Christiano Ronaldo were recently the targets of laser pointers in matches in Europe.
