Belo Horizonte (Brazil): Shortly after coming on as a second-half sub in Argentina’s last World Cup warm-up, Lionel Messi doubled over and appeared to vomit on the pitch.
He’s done it at least a half-dozen times with Argentina and club team Barcelona, mystifying doctors and fans.
“Nerves,” says Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella, and that’s a diagnosis as good as any.
The Argentina captain and four-time world player of the year is under tremendous pressure to lead the Albiceleste to its first World Cup trophy since 1986.
“I reckon that in these moments there is anxiety more than anything,” Sabella said before the team departed for Brazil, where they open their World Cup campaign against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Sunday.
Top athletes throwing up before, during or after a competition is not unusual. Sometimes it’s because of the physical stress on their bodies, sometimes because of performance anxiety.
What’s unusual about Messi is that it seems to happen quite randomly, not when the pressure would seem the greatest or when he’s exhausted himself.
After Messi threw up less than 10 minutes into a friendly match between Argentina and Romania in March, his coach at Barcelona, Gerardo Martino, said “something is not right,” though he added that it wasn’t affecting Messi’s play.
Messi made that point clear against Slovenia on Saturday, scoring Argentina’s second goal just minutes after cameras showed him dry-heaving and receiving a tablet from the bench.
Similarly, in 2011, he scored for Barcelona after throwing up in the Spanish Super Cup Final against Real Madrid. Argentina’s and Barcelona’s medical staff haven’t been able to find the cause. Neither has Messi.
The forward tends to not make a big deal of it, saying it’s just something that happens to him in training, matches and even at home.
“I don’t know what it is. But I had a thousand exams,” Messi told Argentine broadcaster TyC Sports earlier this year. “I start to feel nauseous to the point where I almost vomit, and then it goes away.”
In those decisive moments that make or break a football career, Messi doesn’t show any nerves or lack of confidence.
His more than 350 goals for Barcelona, a club record, and 48 goals for Argentina speak for themselves.
But unlike some of the sport’s other stars, like Portugal’s football diva Cristiano Ronaldo or Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Messi doesn’t act like a superstar off the pitch.
He is a gentle, unassuming person who once told Spanish newspaper El Pais “I’m more concerned with being a good person than being the best footballer in the world.” (AP)
