Messi and football tennis

One interesting variant to tennis is football tennis, where instead of using a racket, the object used is your body (except the arms, just like in football), while the rest remains relatively the same. Messi is no stranger to this sport, as we'll see in this entry.

Going back to 2005, there's footage of him playing football tennis with Tévez and then with Maradona himself. This was in the show 'Noche del 10'.

And continuing in 2005, he had played football tennis in the show Sin Cassette. He played with Pablo González at Plaza Rosario.

Now we go forward to 2007. This was once again in the show Sin Cassette. As we can see, Messi could easily do keepie-uppies and easily won the friendly match.

Moving forward to 2011, he played football tennis with some friends in Rosario on December 27th while he was on vacation.

In August 9th of 2014, Messi was making pre-season training with Barcelona and decided to play football tennis with his teammates. He even managed to do a bicycle kick and nail it.

Earlier in the year, he was doing some training with the national team previous to the 2014 World Cup, and he teamed up with Di María and Gago to play a 3-a-side football tennis match against Biglia, Agüero, and Lavezzi.

Later in the World Cup, specifically on June 20th prior to playing against Iran, Messi played a particular game of football tennis against Agüero. What separated both players was a fence, which separated the field from the tribune.

In June of 2015, preparing for the game against Jamaica, Messi played football-tennis alongside Di María.

In October of 2017, in a training with the national team prior to a World Cup qualifier against Peru, Messi did some football tennis with his teammates being Mascherano and Di María.

In May of 2018, preparing for the 2018 World Cup (with a friendly against Haiti beforehand), Messi played some football tennis and even did a bicycle kick, just like in 2014.

Then in June, Messi once again played football tennis with Argentina in preparation for the World Cup, playing alongside Di María and Mascherano.

In February of 2020, prior to a La Liga game against Eibar, Messi played football tennis alongside Vidal and once again did a bicycle kick.

As a side note, although not tennis, he played teqball with his son Thiago Messi. Antonella made a 4-second clip out of the match and Messi sent it on his Instagram account.

As we can see, football tennis can be a fun practice for Messi, and he has no problem with this variation, even taking some liberties and doing bicycle kicks from time to time, which he doesn't tend to do in football matches. That is all for today, so I hope you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.

Argentina equalizes with Chile and maintains a good position in the qualifiers

Yesterday, Argentina equalized 1-1 with Chile for the return of the Conmebol qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup, Argentina's 1st game since Maradona's death. The first goal came from a penalty from Messi, but Sánchez equalized not long after. Messi's stats were: 1 goal, 4 SoT, 1 woodwork (5 shots in total), 6/10 dribbles, 2 key passes, 13/17 duels won, 5 fouls won, 1 tackle, 5 recoveries, 1 long ball, 1 cross, 49/58 passes, and 87 touches, which earned him a 9.1 rating according to Fotmob.

This was his heatmap:

This was his performance on video:

Another thing to note is that he swapped shirts with Gary Medel, and Medel praised him calling him an alien.

And he also swapped shirts with Alexis Sánchez at the end of the game.

Argentina is currently 2nd in the qualifiers, 4 points ahead of 6th placed Colombia (who they'll be facing next in the qualifiers). That's the same amount of points as Paraguay and Uruguay (placed 4th and 5th). And Ecuador, who's 3rd, is 2 points away from Argentina with one game at hand, but they'll be facing Brazil tonight so we'll see about that.

As already stated, Argentina's next opponent will be Colombia, programmed for June 8th at 8 PM (Argentine timezone). So as always, I hope you liked this entry, and I'll see you in the next blog.

When Messi played alongside Maradona

In 2005, after a good year from Messi, starting to break into the team and scoring 3 goals and giving 4 assists in 21 games, winning the Golden Boy award, it seemed to be over, but there was one game left to play, and it was a friendly for an all-star game between international Argentine stars and local Argentine stars. That is the subject of today's topic, so without further ado, let's analyze the game.

It was December 23rd, 2005, on the Estadio Único de La Plata. Messi, with the Nº 11 shirt, was part of the international Argentine stars team, and both teams were ready to play. He was alongside players like Riquelme and Verón as well. In the beginning, Messi made some good passes and made a shot too, but the real attraction came 17 minutes in, as the game was stopped to introduce Maradona into the pitch, who entered for the same team as Messi.

From then on, the real game started. Although there weren't many goals in the first half (1-0 for the local stars team), and Messi missed some chances, the second half was much better. In the second half, the Argentine international all-star team made a comeback and made it 2-1, then the local all-star team made it 2-2, and after the 3-2, Maradona got off the pitch. Messi was also subbed off for López. The game ended 5-4 in favour of the international all-star team, which was quite a spectacle for the viewers.

It was quite an experience for Messi, and although a game with the two on the same pitch never happened again, it's still interesting to see how much quality there was in that game. I hope you liked this entry, and as always, I'll see you in the next blog.