I have read in several different places that Lionel Messi is autistic, it is said he may have been diagnosed as a child in Argentina before he moved to Spain at 13, and reading books and articles about him and seeing how he talks in interviews and how he is on the pitch a lot of his personality and behaviour would fit with an autistic person. I found it really comforting and inspirational when he won the World Cup yesterday. It felt like NT people always reject us and look down on us and make us feel we are not as good as them and yet an autistic person is the absolute best in the world at something. It made me almost cry with happiness, like a victory for autistic people.
I believe Albert Einstein may have been autistic too. I teach other autistic kids and when they put themselves down and see their autism as something that makes us inferior, I say to them the most intelligent man in history and the greatest footballer in history are both autistic.