They were 17 minutes into the game that
Paris Saint Germain beat
Cristiano Ronaldo
's team 4-3
in a friendly in Riyadh when a barrage of changes occurred in the French team.
Among them, that of
Lionel Messi
.
When leaving the field, instead of going to the PSG substitute bench, Leo went to the Riyadh Seasons, the team led by
Marcelo Gallardo
and made up of the best players from Al Nassr (the club for which CR7 signed at the end of the year ) and Al-Hilal.
The captain of the National Team went directly to the meeting with the Doll.
The warm hug was followed by a few words that the former River coach dedicated to the world champion in Qatar, surely to congratulate him on the title obtained with the
Scaleneta
.
Very few times the best player in the world and the Doll were face to face and until now there were no records of meetings between two talents who admire each other.
The night they spent the longest time together was at the 9 Reinas restaurant in Barcelona, in December 2012. Shortly after Gallardo was champion with Nacional and, on a trip to Europe, he met Javier Mascherano for dinner at a place next to that Messi arrived.
Three years later, during the presentation of the first part of his biography, Gallardo would remember that evening in a very particular way: "We were there at a table with Mascherano and his family. And Messi just arrived with his family too, we met at the restaurant.
We sat down to dine at one table all together
."
"It's very quiet outside, he talks less than I do. And Mascherano, who is sad on top of that, ha. Then we looked at each other and only the women spoke," he revealed. of Mascherano. We listened to the women and we looked at each other, because no one talks much. There was a very particular meeting".
Later, there was a crossover
when River played the final with Barcelona, the 0-3 one in the 2015 Club World Cup in Japan
.
Match in which Leo opened the scoring and apologized to the thousands of millionaire fans who traveled to Asia.
And if there was a greeting, it was in passing and in the privacy of the changing rooms.
Messi during the match against River in 2015. Photo Juano Tesone
They also "lived together" the night of the Copa Libertadores final between River and Boca at the Santiago Bernabéu, the famous 12/9/18: there Messi went to see the superclassic with his father and watched everything from a box.
And he did not have a happy reaction when Benedetto made it 1-0, although he was not seen celebrating the final 3-1 either.
Gallardo always publicly defended Messi
and in 2013, in the midst of criticism of the 10 and when he was quite active on social networks, the Doll wrote on his Twitter account (now inactive): "A call for solidarity:
LET'S TAKE CARE OF MESSI FOR PLEASE!!
This request, addressed to Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Journalists and the general public".
Some time later, already as DT of River, he expressed: "
Messi has taken a leap higher than Maradona
. What happens is that Maradonians by nature have a hard time assuming that. Messi handles situations with such ease that when I see him on TV It gives me a double feeling: admiration and also anger, because it makes you believe that this game is very easy”.
That support had a huge return from Messi: at the end of 2019, when Leo won The Best award and received it in Milan, his votes for the best coaches of the season were known.
And the 10 chose Gallardo in third place, behind Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino.
look too
Lionel Messi took three minutes to score against Cristiano Ronaldo's team
PSG vs Al-Nassr, LIVE: the duel between Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, minute by minute
