Spanish football expert Guillem Balague has revealed that he has been granted a "fascinating insight" into the life of Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi.

Balague received praise for his biography of celebrated coach Pep Guardiola, and for his next project he demanded unlimited access to the life of the Argentine forward.

"I had met Leo on a number of occasions. What I did have was a fascinating insight into not just the player, but also the boy, gleaned from work done with Pep on my previous book, and no one, apart from his family and close friends, knew Leo better than the former Barcelona manager," Balague wrote on the Bleacher Report.

"What I demanded was the right to tell the whole story, and to those ends, what I needed, and eventually got, was unlimited access to all of those around him.

"My aim was to recount the tale of not just a footballing genius, but also of a little boy taken away from his home and his friends who battled adversity, to go on to become the greatest footballer in the world and in the process, come perilously close to tearing apart the thing he loved most in the world — his family."

Balague recently told Sports Mole that he could see La Liga's other superstar Cristiano Ronaldo making a return to his former club Manchester United.