Trending Now
Cool Messi loses control in friendly
Lionel Messi narrowly escaped a red card as his team, Bacelona gained a 3-0 victory over Serie A side Roma in a pre-season friendly at the Camp Nou on Wednesday.
Messi, who rarely loses his cool on the field of play went berserk, head-butting Roma’s French international Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa.
Footage of the first half incident showed Messi aiming a head-butt at Yanga-Mbiwa’s after the Roma defender appeared to nod his head in the direction of the diminutive South American star.
A furious Messi grabbed Yanga-Mbiwa by the throat after clashing with the defender before other players rushed over to intervene.
Messi however, received a caution from referee Javier Estrada Fernandez, while Yanga-Mbiwa was also booked.
Read also: Messi’s alleged £2.4m visit to Gabon sparks outcry
The flashpoint represented a rare loss of cool for Messi. The Argentine has never been sent off for Barcelona and has only ever been red-carded once — on his international debut as a teenager in 2005.
Messi’s anger soon subsided however as moments after the incident, he doubled Barcelona’s lead, making it 2-0 following a superb flowing move involving Luis Suarez, Dani Alves and Neymar, who had scored Barca’s first.
Ivan Rakitic made it 3-0 in the second half with a long range strike as Barcelona completed a routine win.
Barcelona kick off the defence of their Spanish league crown against Athletic Bilbao on August 23.
Ripples… without borders, without fears
Join the conversation
Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism
Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.
As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.
If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.
Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.
INVESTIGATION: In Kwara, multimillion-naira milk processing plant is abandoned, converted to a chicken outlet
After the government spent millions of naira to establish a milk processing plant in Kwara State that would provided jobs...
SPECIAL REPORT: For Sokoto communities, promise of healthcare is akin to death sentence
In this story, ABDULRASHEED HAMMAD delves into the dire realities of Primary Health Care services in Sokoto State, shedding light...
ICYMI…SPECIAL REPORT: NNPCL hides behind PIA to frustrate disclosure, accountability
Nigeria’s major oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), in what appears to be a common practice of disregard...
INVESTIGATION: Multi-million naira Ekiti resort center remains uncompleted a decade after
The multimillion-naira project, expected to comprise recreational buildings, now consists of cassava farmland, a bush used for excretion, and a...
SPECIAL REPORT: Torturous experiences of students with disabilities in Oyo tertiary institutions
For students with disabilities in Oyo state-owned tertiary institutions, learning is a torturous and distressing experience, considering the building structures...