Soccer player Lionel Messi at the Don Julio restaurant in Buenos Aires, this Tuesday. Instagram @adriiperedo (via REUTERS)
The lines in front of Don Julio, one of the most exclusive restaurants in Buenos Aires, are not surprising.
Celebrated as the second best restaurant in Latin America by the 50 Best list, this grill has a waiting list of up to three months and a constant traffic of tourists and some privileged locals every day.
The strange thing is that this line becomes a tide of people who invade the street while jumping and singing songs on the court.
It happened this Monday night.
The captain of the Argentine team, Lionel Messi, came to the country to play two friendlies as a celebration for the victory in the World Cup in Qatar and the city is in revolution.
This Monday, hundreds of people interrupted the peace of the charming neighborhood of Palermo to see him for a few seconds in the most fashionable restaurant in the city.
The effort of the fans was a consolation prize: almost two million people made the virtual queue and ran out of tickets to see the world champion team this Thursday against the Panamanian team.
Tickets for the next game, on March 28 against Curacao in the city of Santiago del Estero, have not yet gone on sale.
The north of Buenos Aires has seen a heavy police deployment this week around the River Plate stadium, where fans who did manage to buy tickets for Thursday's game had to pick them up in person.
The surroundings of the stadium have been fenced off and its ticket offices have been hidden behind wooden screens, like bank boxes.
The World Cup joy of last December 18 seems inexhaustible.
The city is preparing to receive the team again with the memory of the almost five million people who came out to celebrate with the players in the streets and ended up pushing them to tour it by helicopter.
The captain is already in the city and last night he was able to go out, for a moment, calm.
He arrived at the grill around 11 p.m. and, already at dawn, the police had to escort him through the tide of fans.
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