Gabriel Muniz, an 11-year-old from Brazil, has been invited to meet his idol Lionel Messi and train with Spanish club Barcelona in September.
Muniz is not like the average 11-year-old boy as he was born without feet.
The Spanish club’s staff first saw Muniz playing while scouting in Rio de Janeiro.
Muniz has beaten the odds, as he is both the best player on his school soccer team and the captain of his gym team. His mother, Sandra, says her son started walking at the age of one.
“He is challenging the social norms. When he arrived there [at the Barcelona academy], no one believed in him,” Gabriel’s gym teacher Jose Lopes said in an interview.
Lopes went on to say Muniz can go head-to-head with any other player, proving all of his doubters wrong.
Muniz has aspirations of playing soccer in the Paralympics.