Leo Messi's role at the Man Utd academy

The life of a professional footballer is surreal. To make it to the top, you have to dedicate yourself to the sport at a young age (unless you're Jamie Vardy that is), and spend your whole life thinking about football and everything that surrounds it. Then, if you get lucky, you are thrust into the spotlight at a young age, and then you are suddenly adored by thousands, and paid more money than you can spend. 

It is no surprise then that this transition from a sheltered life to the limelight is a struggle for many. When you are widely adored and handsomely remunerated it is hard to stay grounded, and many players end up growing arrogant or lazy as a result. Just look at Ravel Morrison.

To combat this phenomenon, Jose Mourinho has come up with an innovative solution to assure that the Manchester United youth players' feet stay firmly on the ground. In an interview with 'The Times', Manchester United academy coach Nicky Butt revealed all.

The former United player told the English outlet that Mourinho has installed a photo of Lionel Messi cleaning his own boots in the academy team's dressing room. The photo was taken when Messi was playing for Argentina in 2014, and is intended to serve as a message of humility to the players.

By the signs of it, his method is working too. United have brought a series of young players through into the first team, such as Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford and, most recently, Scott McTominay.

'The Times' reports that Lingard and Rashford still return to the academy regularly to train, and despite Mourinho's reputation as the enemy of youth, Nicky Butt says that the Portuguese manager has been a pleasure to work with. 

"He came to me and said, 'I'm the manager of the first team. You're the manager of the academy. I'm selfish. I want to get them into winning ways. We will speak about players coming up,' " Butt revealed. 

"I can't ask for any more than that."