No one of the more than 74 million people who liked that Instagram photo realized (they had no way) that the cup Messi was raising was not the real one.
Neither was the captain of the Argentine team on the pitch.
And when the FIFA agents, a man and a woman, told Ángel Di María to please not let anyone touch the trophy he was holding, Ángel looked into the distance and saw Messi on his shoulders, kissing the cup, the people around.
"I eat?
And that one?" he asked.
"The original is this," replied the man.
"That's why we're here."
Messi raises a replica of the World Cup made by Pantano after winning the French team in the final. This photograph was uploaded by the footballer to his Instagram and is the post that has received the most likes (75 million) in history.
More than 13,000 kilometers from there, with the euphoria for the championship still in her body, the artisan Eliana Pantano watched the festivities on the television at her brother-in-law's house.
She had decided to postpone going out into the street: for her children, Bastián and Martina, six and eight years old;
to be able to cry and enjoy quietly.
On the screen, she saw the reflection of the light on the glass that Messi was raising and she knew that this reflection was not made of gold.
She hesitated: "It looks the same as mine."
This was confirmed when the image stopped at Antonela Roccuzzo, wife of the Argentine captain, kissing the trophy: the marks on the base were not veins of malachite, but brushstrokes that she had made.
Pantano retouches a replica of the World Cup.Mariana Eliano
Was what he was seeing true?
Inside, a contained eruption: did the world champions have one of the two replicas that he, she knew, his clients had brought to the court on the day of the final?
He couldn't believe it.
In silence, he remembered the floats that he put together with his family for the carnivals in Gualeguaychú;
the time when he was studying Fine Arts, the pain of having to stop studying, the decision to make a replica of the Copa Libertadores and the surprise when different clubs began to ask him for others.
He thought about the success he had had until, in 2018, the police raided his parents' house and Conmebol (South American Football Confederation) initiated a plagiarism trial.
Also in arrhythmia due to stress, in frustration and heart failure,
the moment in which he said that his health and that of his family came before everything else, the disappointment.
And now, finally, this.
"Eli!" Fernando, her husband, shouted: "It's your drink!"
"No!" she replied, knowing it was, but afraid of breaking the illusion.
"Yes Eli!
Notice!
It has a porito!"
And she showed him the hole, minimal, in the African zone, a small point in the resin, a detail that is usually a reason for discussion every time Pantano finishes a drink because her husband and brother tell her: "That's it, just noticeable".
But she insists because she wants the replica to be as similar as possible to the model designed by the Italian Silvio Gazzaniga.
"Yes Eli!
Notice!
It has a porito!"
And she showed him the hole, minimal, in the African zone, a small point in the resin, a detail that is usually a reason for discussion every time Pantano finishes a drink because her husband and brother tell her: "That's it, just noticeable".
But she insists because she wants the replica to be as similar as possible to the model designed by the Italian Silvio Gazzaniga.
"Yes Eli!
Notice!
It has a porito!"
And she showed him the hole, minimal, in the African zone, a small point in the resin, a detail that is usually a reason for discussion every time Pantano finishes a drink because her husband and brother tell her: "That's it, just noticeable".
But she insists because she wants the replica to be as similar as possible to the model designed by the Italian Silvio Gazzaniga.
Pantano work tools.Mariana Eliano
Pantano knows his works perfectly.
It takes two to three weeks to finish one, but lead times can be as long as five or six months when demand increases.
Model the mixture of quartz and resin, chisel, polish;
he draws the waves, the contours of the continents and then, with a lathe like a dentist's, he engraves the details: he putty, turns, decorates and, only then, gives it a gold bath treatment, paints the base and lacquers it.
Replicas of trophies in Eliana Pantano's workshop.Mariana Eliano
They are so similar that, a while after the festivities, a FIFA security man hesitated and approached the audience.
He asked the couple who had the cup that Messi had raised to show it to him.
No, he checked, it wasn't the original.
"Excuse me," he said embarrassed, "you can continue celebrating."
