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Argentina worships Leo Messi. It always has been the case, but after the World Cup title, the adoration only multiplied. The love, the obsession, it's so unleashed that when people found out he was eating at a steakhouse in Buenos Aires on Monday night, hundreds gathered around the restaurant to chant his name and police had to come to keep everybody safe.
The PSG star is back this week in his country to forget the miseries he's living in the French capital but, most importantly, celebrate the World Cup success on the field with a couple of friendly games against Panamá and Curaçao.
Before joining the rest of his teammates, Messi decided to have a night out with his family and went to Don Julio steakhouse, a trendy restaurant in the Palermo neighborhood. And things went a little crazy: someone alerted about Messi's presence there and soon a multitude of fans were outside the eatery chanting "Messi, Messi" and the hit "Muchachos," which ended up being the unofficial anthem of Argentina in Qatar.
There were so many people that the police came in to keep an eye on the situation and help Messi get to his car unscratched once he finished his dinner.
"Don Julio":
Por la presencia de Lionel Messi en ese restaurantepic.twitter.com/8Q53dHg976— ¿Por qué es tendencia? (@porquetendencia) March 21, 2023
Madness.
However, those who went to Don Julio are not the only ones crazy to see Messi and the rest of the team when they take on Panama. The tickets to see the match evaporated in seconds, with reports of more than one million people queuing online, while the local soccer federation received 130,000 media accreditation requests.
The Monumental de River Plate, the venue for the match, has a capacity for 83,000 people.
Argentina will face Panamá on Thursday, March 23 (8 p.m. ET), while the game against Curaçao has been scheduled for Tuesday, March 28 (time TBD).
