Lionel Messi won’t ask opponents to swap shirts but made rare exception
Former Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane is the only player Lionel Messi has ever asked to swap shirts with.
Messi, 36, rarely goes a game without fielding requests from opponents to swap shirts. Such scenarios have seemingly only increased with his move to Inter Miami.
A sea of Major League Soccer players have made a beeline to the World Cup winner since he started playing Stateside to try their luck. Messi is often happy to oblige but refrains from requesting swaps himself.
"I don't ask for shirts," he told Argentine television channel TyC Sports in 2017. "If there is an Argentine, I will swap with an Argentine. If not, and there is someone else that asks me, I will swap it with them. If not, I do not look and do not ask."
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However, he made an exception to that rule during the early days of his career. "I asked once," Messi admitted in the same interview. "I asked [Zinedine] Zidane."
That swap seemingly happened in November 2005 when the then-teenager started for Barcelona against Zidane's Real Madrid during that season's first El Clasico. At the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, the visitors were 3-0 winners thanks to a Ronaldinho brace after Samuel Eto'o opened the scoring.
Messi and Zidane played against each other only once at the opposite ends of their careersMessi assisted the opener, registering his first set-up of the campaign, and played 70 minutes before being substituted for Andres Iniesta. However, despite departing early, it sounds like he still got himself Zidane's shirt after the match.
It was good timing from Messi, too, as Zidane would retire at the end of that season following the 2006 World Cup. That shirt, in particular, takes pride of place in the player's collection.
"I have them all saved in my house, in Barcelona, where I have all the important mementos of my career," Messi told the Miami Herald this summer.
"I simply exchange with whoever happens to be there at that moment," he added. "I have had a chance to play against teams that had Argentine players, and generally we swap shirts, but I also exchanged shirts with players in Europe - players who I knew from before... it's always nice to change shirts with friends or players I know."
That mantra has been evidenced throughout his first few months with Miami. Swaps with Argentine players Alan Velasco, Augusto Lotti, Carlos Rotondi, Julian Carranza and Martin Ojeda took place during the Leagues Cup alone.
Dax McCarty, Harrison Afful and Rafael Santos also secured moments during the tournament. Since then, compatriot Luciano Acosta and LAFC goalkeeper John McCarthy got their hands on Messi's shirt, too. The latter saved sensationally to stop the Miami captain from scoring before the exchange. Messi was seemingly impressed with the acrobatics and duly obliged following the full-time whistle.
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