Lionel Messi is still as humble as when he first started coming through the Barcelona academy, remarkable considering everything he has won during his career and becoming arguably the greatest player in history while lifting the World Cup trophy in Qatar in December 2022.
Indeed, a tale from after that World Cup triumph, while Messi was back at his hometown of Rosario, truly epitomises this.
Just before Christmas, Messi welcomed ex-Barcelona team-mate Luis Suarez and family to his Rosario home.
The newly crowned champion was wearing a pair of Argentina slippers with the No.10 – a gift from a fan who’d made them specially for him last year, but couldn’t have guessed that Messi would actually wear them. His surprise was even bigger when he opened the private messages in his Instagram account.
“Hi Luciano, all well? I’m Leo,” wrote Messi, to the owner of a small venture that’s now become incredibly popular.
“I wanted to thank you for the slippers. They are super good, and so is the box. I’d like to see if you can make one for my sons and the pink Paris [PSG] one for my wife.
" Sizes are 33, 29, 26 and [his wife] Antonela 35. Mine are 42/43. Sorry I’ve seen your messages only now!”
It is the beauty of Messi, not just the Louis Vuitton backpacks and Gucci pants, but also enjoying the £10 slippers. The very same day, Cristiano Ronaldo posted a picture of his Christmas present, a Rolls-Royce.
That humility is ratified by Juan Baldana, the director of Sean eternos: Campeones de América - a docuseries charting Argentina's Copa America 2021 win and the squad's progress ahead of the World Cup last year.
Welcomed into Messi's home during the filming process, Baldana explains to FourFourTwo what the genius is really like in everyday life.
“When we toured Europe to interview the players, we were welcomed into their homes and that gave us something extra,” explains Baldana of the film-making process.
“When someone opens the door of their house, they can also open the door of their soul, their heart. We felt something special was going on with that group. Something bigger was coming.
“I remember we rang the bell, waiting for someone to open. To our surprise, it was Messi who opened. ‘Hi, how are you? Come on in,’ he said. Normality. Humbleness. Wow. It was like being over in Rosario. The TV was showing a cooking channel from Argentina. It’s difficult to understand how such a star was so humble.
Baldana continues, describing how willing Messi was to do what was asked of him during filming.
“I proposed to him to make a scene in which he put on headphones and listened to all the critics, then looked straight at the camera, ready to tell his truth. He got it immediately. We had to improve the audio quality so he suggested we move to his walk-in closet. Suddenly, we’d transformed it into a TV studio.”
