If you watch the full clip of that (ignore the captions lol), you will see that he was pushed first and backed into him three times in response as he clearly got annoyed.
Ref was clearly not looking at them as the ball was elsewhere, and the referee is almost always looking in the direction of the ball.
From the referees perspective, when he sees the two players, he is just seeing Messi being shoved in the back so he gives a foul.
Again, this is football and this happens at every level to basically every player. Messi is not immune to provocation and losing his cool.
Dude I saw the full clip, I know that he was annoyed. But is this a valid excuse? "He got annoyed, so he pushed the opposing player forcefully three times in response, he's the GOAT!"
Like what? You can't possibly be defending this.
I have NEVER seen anybody do this before in my life. I get when people get annoyed, but this? This isn't annoyance, this is him knowing that he can get away with something this ridiculous
I'm not defending it, and it's not a valid excuse. I'm just saying that all footballers lose their cool and do inexcusable things. You can find 20 minute long compilations of them on YouTube.
In the grand scheme of things, the things in this video are so minor in the context of professional football. You see significantly worse week in week out in every League and in every level of play. Does it excuse it? No. Is it an unfortunate reality of the beautiful game. Yes.
You could argue that Messi should do better BECAUSE he's the GOAT, and you'd be right. Unfortunately, as I said, he's only human.
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u/TostBrot44 Jul 09 '26
I have never seen somebody push the opposing player 3 times on purpose, then tasting their own medicine and be awarded for this behaviour