(PLO)- A few years ago, Lionel Messi celebrated scoring epic goals by giving each goalkeeper he scored against them bottles of beer for Christmas. What a gentleman.
That was the comment of the Daily Star (UK) today, December 26, in an article with the headline: “Lionel Messi sent strange Christmas gifts to 22 Premier League players.” Lionel Messi has spent his entire career tormenting goalkeepers, but a few years ago, he decided to give something back to them, Daily Star happily commented.
Ahead of Christmas 2020, Argentine superstar Lionel Messi scored his 644th goal for Barcelona, an important milestone that helped him surpass the official achievement achieved by the legendary Pele while playing for Santos. To celebrate, he decided to give each goalkeeper he scored against a small gift.
With the help of Budweiser beer, Lionel Messi sent the goalkeepers he scored against a total of 644 bottles of beer, corresponding to the number of goals he scored against them. 160 goalkeepers received this special gift, including 22 who played in the Premier League. Every Christmas, international media often repeat this interesting event and in 2023, it is the turn of the Daily Star.
Among the 22 Premier League goalkeepers to receive Christmas gifts from Lionel Messi in 2020 are David De Gea, Petr Cech, Hugo Lloris, Edwin van der Sar, Thibaut Courtois, Joe Hart, Alisson Becker, Fraser Forster, Jens Lehmann, Rui Patricio, David Ospina, Claudio Bravo, Wojciech Szczesny, Keylor Navas, Julio Cesar, Manuel Almunia, Willy Caballero, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Bernd Leno, Vicente Guaita, Adrian and Mat Ryan.
In addition, there are goalkeepers in other tournaments who have been conceded by Messi. Valencia goalkeeper Diego Alves then received 21 bottles, corresponding to 21 times Messi scored. Diego Alves received more goals from Messi than any other goalkeeper, while former Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas received 17 bottles of beer. Each bottle has a number denoting its position in Messi’s huge list of goals and also has a photo of M10 celebrating on it.
14 goalkeepers received more than 10 bottles of beer, while 44 goalkeepers were given at least five bottles of beer. At that time, former Man City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was the Premier League player who received the most beer with more than 10 bottles, even though Messi scored against Bravo in all La Liga matches.
Courtois is the next highest-ranked former Premier League player on the list, receiving 9 bottles from Messi. Three of them came while he was playing for Chelsea, who were eliminated by Barcelona in the 2017 – 201 Champions League. Manchester United’s David De Gea received six bottles, while goalkeepers such as Cech, Van der Sar and Hart received 2 bottles.
Some people, like Gianluigi Buffon, were so happy to receive a strange Christmas gift from Lionel Messi that he posted photos of beer bottles on social networks . Italian football legend Buffon shared on social networks at the time: “Thank you for the beers. I’ll take that as a compliment. We’ve had great battles over the years!”.
