Lionel Messi has been assaulted by a youth wearing a hoodie outside a restaurant in the soccer star’s home town of Rosario, Argentina.
Messi, on holiday in Argentina after another brilliant season in which he helped Barcelona win the UEFA Champions League, left the restaurant with friends and was surrounded immediately by autograph hunters.
Argentine media reported that Messi’s aggressor was a fan of Rosario Central, arch-rivals of Newell’s Old Boys – for whom the 23-year-old star played before joining Barcelona 10 years ago.
“We’re taking photos and we see the arm and he dodges it,” a witness told the TV news channel C5N.
“Messi did not react badly, he left walking and got into the car.”
Messi later played down the incident, saying “I wasn’t even touched”.
“I didn’t feel a thing and I only found out after all the kerfuffle, it was nothing,” Messi later told sports daily Ole from Rosario.
by Buford Balony
