Lionel Messi’s warm embrace with Marcelo Gallardo in Riyadh

There were 17 minutes of play paris saint germain won 4 to 3 to the team of Cristiano Ronaldo in a friendly match in Riyadh when a flurry of changes occurred in the French squad. Among these, that of Lionel Messi.

On leaving the pitch, instead of going to the PSG substitutes’ bench, Leo made his way to Riyadh Seasons, the team led by Marcellus Gallardo and made up of top players from Al Nassr (the club CR7 signed for at the end of the year) and Al Hilal.

The captain of the national team went directly to the meeting with the doll. The warm embrace was followed by a few words that the former River coach dedicated to the world champion in Qatar, certainly to congratulate him on the title obtained with the staggered.

Very few times have the best player in the world and the doll come face to face and until now there was no record of meeting between two talents who admire each other.

The night they spent the most time together was at the 9 Reinas restaurant in Barcelona, ​​​​​​in December 2012. Shortly thereafter Gallardo was champion with Nacional and, during a trip to Europe, he met Javier Mascherano for dinner in a place next to that Messi has arrived.

Three years later, during the presentation of the first part of his biography, Gallardo will remember that evening in a very special way: «We were there at a table with Mascherano and his family. And as soon as Messi arrived with his family, we met at the restaurant. We all sat down to have dinner together at a table.“.

“It’s very quiet outside, he talks less than me. And Mascherano, who is also sad, ah. Then we looked at each other and only the women spoke”, revealed di Mascherano. and we looked at each other, because nobody talks much. There was a very special meeting.”

Then there was a crossing when River played the final with Barcelona, ​​the 0-3 one of the 2015 Club World Cup in Japan. Game in which Leo opened the scoring and apologized to the thousands of millionaire fans who traveled to Asia. And if there was a greeting, he was passing by and in the intimacy of the changing rooms.

They also “lived together” the night of the Copa Libertadores final between River and Boca at the Santiago Bernabéu, the famous 9/12/18: there Messi went to see the superclassic with his father and watched everything from a box. And he didn’t have a happy reaction when Benedetto scored the 1-0, even if he didn’t even see himself celebrating the 3-1 final.

Gallardo has always publicly defended Messi And in 2013, amidst the criticisms of 10 and when he was quite active on social media, the Doll wrote on his (now inactive) Twitter account: “A call for solidarity: LET’S TAKE CARE OF MESSI PLEASE!! This request, addressed to leaders, entrepreneurs, journalists and the general public”.

Some time later, already as River’s DT, he expressed: “Messi jumped higher than Maradona. What happens is that Maradonians by nature have a hard time assuming this. Messi handles situations so easily that when I see him on TV he gives me a double feeling: admiration and also anger, because he makes us believe that this match is very easy.”

That support had a huge comeback from Messi: at the end of 2019, when Leo won The Best award and received it in Milan, his votes for the best coaches of the season were known. And the 10 chose Gallardo in third place, behind Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino.