Like Diego Maradona after winning the 1986 World Cup, star Lionel Messi can no longer walk calmly through the streets of Argentina.
At the age of 35, Messi sparked a frenzy this week on his return to the football-loving country that has made him its new national hero after lifting Argentina’s third World Cup as captain of the albiceleste in Qatar three months ago.
The Paris Saint Germain star, who arrived in his native country on Monday to play a friendly against Panama, confirmed it early Tuesday morning when almost a thousand people surrounded the restaurant where he was dining with family and friends in Buenos Aires.
While the player dined with his relatives at “Don Julio”, an internationally famous grill for its roast meats, in the street the fans shouted “Messi, Messi” and dedicated the classic songs of the Argentine fans: “que de la Leo Messi’s hand we’re going to turn around” and “Boys”, according to images that went viral on social networks.
Messi had to be escorted one block by the police to get to his car and leave. The crazy fans touched the player as if it were a religious image and at the same time captured that moment with their cell phones. “Messi I love you” and “thank you Leo” were some of the phrases they said to him as he went by.
“Thank you for looking at me captain, I can die in peace,” Loli Brancos thanked on Twitter, who was able to approach Messi and greet him.
The madness for Messi goes back to the furor that Maradona unleashed in the South American country 36 years ago after lifting the World Cup in Mexico. The then-captain also had to deal with crowds of fans who followed him wherever he went for a photograph or autograph.
“Leo’s thing seems beautiful to me because he deserves all that love, he and all the players who are here,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said at a press conference on Tuesday, referring to the furor generated by his captain in the population . “Leo also needs to see that people love him and what happens when he comes here. He seems beautiful to me, he will stay with her forever.
But it was not always like that for Messi.
Messi suffered the indifference and even the antipathy of many albiceleste fans when pointing him out as responsible for Argentina’s defeats in the Copa América finals (2007, 2015 and 2016) and in the World Cup (2014). This excessive criticism led the player to resign from his country’s team in 2016, although he reconsidered over time.
After lifting the World Cup, the greatest achievement of his successful professional career, there was speculation about Messi’s continuity or not in the national team, especially after he himself questioned whether he was going to play in the 2026 World Cup.
“Messi is fine, he’s here to keep coming and until he says otherwise, if it happens I’ll see what I do, I’ll try to convince him,” Scaloni said. “Meanwhile he is happy being on a court and in the national team.”
The striker will celebrate winning the World Cup with his teammates on Thursday when Argentina faces Panama in a friendly at the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires with sold-out tickets.
The security authorities keep secret the operation to transfer the squad from the team venue in Ezeiza, a western suburb of the capital, to the Monumental precisely for fear that the fans will block roads and accesses and prevent the arrival of the bus. They do not rule out that the players travel by helicopter.
