Lionel Messi was lambasted for appearing to ignore a young boy who went to shake his hand before Argentina’s match against Bosnia in the World Cup.
Messi and the rest of the team were shaking hands with officials prior to the match.
The Barcelona striker moved toward the officials, waving to the young kids behind them. One of the boys ventured up next to the officials, and held out his hand. Messi appeared to ignore him.
By the time he had circled around, allegedly to shake the boy’s hand, the boy had walked away.
A photo obtained by Univision and other media outlets appears to show that Messi eventually found the boy and spoke with him. In the photo, a young boy is sitting on his lap, and both are smiling at the camera.
However, 101 Great Goals says that the boy is another boy, possibly the son of former Fluminense player Deivid.
Messi hasn’t commented on which boy it actually is but did insist that he didn’t ignore the boy on purpose.
“How could it be that I did not want to greet the boy? I just did not realise he was there,” he told Eurosport.
“In fact, I spoke to two other children in the line. I would never do such a thing when I have a nephew and young son, I would never do such a thing with a boy.”
According to the site www.soy502.com, Augustine Illescas, the boy in the video, is the smallest of the 20 children who went to the World Cup through the program “Live your dream” by McDonalds.
In a video posted online his dad asks him what he’s doing and he says that he’s “Packing to go the Brazil, to meet Messi.”
