Messi and rugby/American football

Rugby/American football is another sport that Messi is obviously not known for, but like with basketball, he's had some contact with throughout the years. So this entry will be dedicated to those times Messi and the sport connected.

First, we'll go back to March 2014 when Messi was given a shirt of 'Los Pumas' (Argentina's national rugby team). Martín Rodríguez gave it to Lavezzi so he could give it to Messi seemed to like the gift and even posed with the shirt, which Rodríguez later sent the pic on social media. The rugby player later said on Twitter: "It's incredible that it reached his hands... Thanks Lavezzi you're great!".

In March of 2015, Messi met up with Robert Griffin III, quarterback from the Washington Redskins, as well as two hockey players. They presented Messi with a 'Messi' shirt for their teams in their respective sports, with the Nº 10 of course.

Forward to September 2015, when Argentina did their tour in the USA, Messi met JJ Watt, who was the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year in 2014. Watt posted a pic of both of them together and captioned 'The best football player on the planet.'.

In June of 2016, while Messi was in the USA for the Copa América, he met with American football player Patrick Chung, a member of the Patriots.

Moving on to December 2016, when Messi was in an Argentine gym while on vacations, he trained alongside Juan Nogués, a rugby player from Club Atlético del Rosario. Messi posed with the team's shirt and with Nogués too.

In June of 2017, days before the Superclásico de las Américas game against Brazil in Melbourne, Messi met some Wallabies (Australia's national rugby team). He posed with Will Genia, changing shirts with him, Sam Carter, and he posed with more members of the Wallabies as well.

Going to a different subject, opinions, Tom Brady (regarded as the best player in the NFL's history) said he liked Messi and said he was a great player, but was unsure about the Messi vs Maradona debate as he had not seen Maradona's game. He also said it was a blessing to be compared to Messi.

He also inspired DeAndre Hopkins, player from the Arizona Cardinals, to play with the Nº 10 jersey. And this is what he had to say for Messi: "Messi is obviously considered one of the best players in history. He's small, you know, he's not the tallest. I feel his mentality is to have everything against him."

And finally, to what people care the most, Messi actually playing the sport. He has played only once with a rugby ball as far as evidence goes, and it was in a training with his Barcelona team-mates back in February 2014.

There's also an Adidas ad of him dribbling past an entire rugby team, but that's acting to promote his Nemeziz boots of course.

In a future entry, I will detail how Messi could have been as an American football player. As always, I hope you liked this entry and I'll see you in the next blog.