What’s the story?
Things are not going well for Lionel Messi these days. Heartbreaks after heartbreaks both on the international stage and the domestic circuit, compounded with the Ballon d’Or and the Best FIFA Men’s Player loss to Cristiano Ronaldo has made it a 12-months to forget for the diminutive Argentine.
And the troubles don’t seem to end anytime soon for the 5-time Ballon d’Or winner. It has now emerged that a statue of the Barcelona superstar located in the city of Buenos Aires has been destroyed in an act of vandalism. The statue has been mutilated and the upper half of it remains missing.
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Buenos Aires city department have issued a statement following the destruction of the statue, which reads: "The statue of Lionel Messi fell victim to an act of vandalism that left the footballer's sculpture without its top half. The City Government is now working on its repair."
In case you didn’t know...
The statue was unveiled in June of 2016 by mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, only a few days after Argentina’s heartbreaking loss against Chile in the final of Copa America Centenario, following which Messi had announced his retirement from international football. A decision he reconsidered upon counsel later that year and appeared in La Albiceleste’s next international game.
The Messi sculpture was found on the banks of Rio de la Plata and was part of the ‘Glory Walkway’, which has been constructed to honour and remember Argentine stars. Along with Messi, likenesses of Gabriela Sabatini, Guillermo Vilas and Juan Manuel Fangio can also be found on the Walkway.
The heart of the matter
It is not the first incident that a statue of a footballing superstar has been vandalised. Fans of Lionel Messi had vandalised Cristiano Ronaldo’s statue in the Portuguese’s hometown of Madeira at the start of 2016, the very next day after Messi won his fifth Ballon d’Or. You can read the details about it here.
What's next?
The municipal department of Buenos Aires city will undertake the job of repairing the statue, although it might take a while to do so.
Sportskeeda’s Take
It is a well-known fact that Lionel Messi is not universally loved in Argentina, like his so-called predecessor Diego Maradona, or even his compatriot Carlos Tevez. There is a resentment in the hearts of the South American nation that Messi failed to win them the World Cup – a feat El Diego can proudly claim to have achieved.
However, when all is said and done, vandalism is an act of the coward and is a criminal offence and we are completely against it. Say NO to vandalism!
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