Lionel Messi tipped Man City wonderkid as one of world’s best prospects - this how it all went wrong

A decade ago, Lionel Messi was asked to name the 10 most talented young players in world football for a marketing campaign by Adidas. On that list was a 19-year-old Manchester City winger who had enjoyed a stunning debut for the club, but whose career never hit the heights he hoped for – Rony Lopes.

10 years after Messi singled him out for praise as one of the brightest talents of his generation, Lopes is on loan with Farense in his home country, the tenth team he has played for in those 10 years. He made it as far as the Portugal squad, briefly, but never became the player Messi thought he might… so where did it all go wrong, and which former West Ham manager does Lopes blame for some of his struggles?

Why Lionel Messi thought Manchester City’s Rony Lopes would be a star

Born Marcos Lopes in 1995, the young winger earned the nickname Rony due to his obsession with legendary Brazilian striker Ronaldo – and for some time, he seemed set for a similarly stellar career, or at least something close.

Lopes signed for Manchester City in 2011 at the age of 15, moving from Benfica’s famed academy to make his way in English football – and he started in promising fashion. On debut, as a late substitute in a 3-0 FA Cup win over Watford in January 2013, Lopes the third and final goal, becoming the youngest goalscorer in club history at the age of just 17 years and 9 days old. It’s a record he holds to this day.

A year later, he provided two assists in a League Cup semi-final win over West Ham, teeing up both Sergio Agüero and Álvaro Negredo as City wrapped up a 9-0 aggregate victory on their way to winning the first silverware of Lopes’ career. It was early days, but those first outings in cup matches hinted at a great deal more to come.

ESPN’s Manchester City correspondent Simon Curtis described him as “a prodigious talent” with “faultless close control, great speed off the mark, speed of thought, eye for a pass and courage” – still, City eventually decided that they would be better off taking a profit rather than continuing to develop him. In the summer of 2015, after a successful loan spell at Lille, he was sold to AS Monaco for a reported £9m.

At around the same time, Adidas asked Lionel Messi to name his ten brightest talents in world football – and he picked Lopes as part of his Top 10. It was an endorsement that may have been more of a curse than a blessing (of the ten, Timo Werner has been by far and away the most successful), but given the presence of two American players who are little known outside of the MLS, one does wonder if Messi himself actually made the choices.

Whether Messi really had personal faith in Lopes’ talent or not, he had been sold for what was a hefty sum for a teenager at the time, and plenty was expected of Lopes – and after being loaned back to Lille for another two years while he learned his craft in Ligue 1, his eventual introduction to Monaco’s first team lived up to the hype.

Lopes was explosive in the 2017/18 season, scoring 15 Ligue 1 goals in 38 games and earning his two caps for Portugal. He would narrowly miss out on a place in the 2018 World Cup squad after being named in the provisional selection, and didn’t win any trophies for all his good work with Monaco (who finished as runners-up in the Coupe de France), but he had finally arrived and was earning recognition as a first-rate player who could compete at the international level. Unfortunately, his form didn’t last.

What happened to Rony Lopes?

After scoring prolifically in 2017/18, Lopes’ form fell of a cliff. Injuries interrupted the following campaign and he managed just two more league goals for Monaco – not that his reduced returns worried Sevilla. The Spanish side splashed out €25m (£21.7m) for his services in the summer of 2019, but he continued to struggle. Of the 14 games Lopes would play for Sevilla, only five of them would be in La Liga – and he didn’t score in any of them.

Persistent fitness issues were the main problem, as Lopes would later explain to L’Equipe: “Injuries ruined my career. They always came when I was getting better and lasted a few weeks. It's always been my hamstrings. Nobody could tell me the source of the problem. I've searched for answers for most of my life. I saw myself playing for Real Madrid or for Barcelona, or Manchester City. I think I could have got to that level. That's the toughest thing. Sometimes I wonder how far I could've gone had I not been injured. I'd love to know."

Not that his hamstrings were the only issue that Lopes faced in Spain. He also lays some of the blame for his downfall at the feet of Julen Lopetegui, who was Sevilla manager at the time and would later endure a short and disappointing spell at West Ham.

“I got there and found a coach with whom I only played in the Europa League on Thursdays,” Lopes continued in his L’Equipe interview. “"At the weekend I was left at home, not even with the team. After lockdown, Lopetegui told me that I was in good shape, even better shape than the others in my position, but that he'd play the others. Once I was with a teammate and he asked them how they were, but [said] nothing to me. I was left wondering what I was doing there."

He wouldn’t be there long. With injuries continuing to dog his progress, Lopes went on loan to OGC Nice back in France before spells with Olympiacos, Troyes, Braga and Turkish side Alanyaspor.

There were flashes of his old talent and goal-scoring prowess, but he was never able to stay fit and firing for any length of time – and his returns in the Turkish Super Lig were so poor (zero goals in 15 league games for Alanyaspor, only two of them starts) that the now 29-year-old was sent back to Portugal on loan with Farense earlier this year.

Lopes has bagged one goal in his eight appearances for his new team, who are deep in the Liga Portugal relegation mire and seem doomed to drop down to the second tier. It isn’t the sort of stage on which Lopes (or Messi, for that matter) thought he might be performing a decade ago.

Still, few can claim to have caught the eye of the greatest player of all time, and he played his part not only in a League Cup triumph but in a Europa League win (with Sevilla), and successful Greek Super League and Portuguese Cup campaigns. It probably wasn’t a career trajectory that anyone saw coming, and it could be said to be a disappointment – but Lopes will end his career with more medals and with more money spent on him than most.