Lionel Messi has become a different person since he moved to the US this summer.
Yes, he’s still playing as good as he always has been doing, but he seems to have carried
his aggression from the World Cup into the MLS.
But that’s not even the main difference we have noticed.
We all know Lionel Messi delivers very ordinary celebrations after scoring except maybe on
a few occasions here and there, like that one against Real Madrid and that one he did
as a tribute to Maradona after his passing.
But most of the time, he’s just pointing to the sky to pay homage to his grandma.
However, since he moved to the US, Messi has been delivering some special celebrations
back to back, and we want to know what the reasons behind them are.
We’ll get to that in a second, but first, check
this out.
For those who don’t even know what we’re talking about, what rock have you been living
under?
Anyway, let’s quickly catch you up.
After Messi scored in his first start for Inter Miami in the Leagues Cup game against
Atlanta United, he unleashed this celebration which reminds us of the god of thunder himself,
Thor.
That celebration rocked the internet and people started arriving at different assumptions
as to why Messi did it.
Some said it was him dedicating the goal to David Beckham because he stretched his hand
in Becks’ direction.
For some others, like Messi’s wife herself, Messi was only providing us with a wallpaper
ahead of Thursday which, you know, is quite literally Thor’s Day.
She put up a photo of her husband doing the celebration on Instagram with a sticker which
said “Thor’s Day”.
And considering this is coming from the wife of the man himself, this is the explanation
we’ll be going with.
Anyway, some fans just saw a special celebration from the GOAT and ran with it on social media.
They made edits of Messi grabbing Thor’s hammer and in some of those edits, the hammer
was replaced with the World Cup trophy.
Some made edits of Messi alongside Chris Hemsworth who acts as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
while some others just decided to use that opportunity to troll Cristiano Ronaldo as
Messi fans always do to CR7 and vice versa.
But then, the following week, Messi played another Leagues Cup game, this time against
Orlando City, and he scored.
Some were expecting him to pull off the Thor celebration again thinking that was his new
signature celebration while some others were expecting things to go back to factory setting,
but Messi unleashed another celebration entirely.
This time around, it was the Wakanda Forever celebration.
Fans quickly recognized the pattern.
First a Thor celebration and then a Black Panther one.
It was easy to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe link, and well, therein lies your answer.
Messi is obviously alluding to the Marvel superheroes, but the question is why?
Through the years, we’ve never known Messi as a Marvel fan or a superhero-obsessed guy,
why’s he doing these celebrations all of a sudden at the age of 36?
Well, here are some possible explanations.
First of all, Marvel and the MLS have an ongoing partnership.
The two brands even launched some merch together.
There are Captain America-themed warmup tops and Avengers-inspired warmup jackets, pants,
and even match balls.
And we still expect a few more superhero-themed merch to drop in the coming weeks and months
from this partnership.
So, it’s not crazy at all to think that the league would ask Messi to do those celebrations
wherein he’s acting as some sort of ambassador for the collaboration.
Now, just in case you have some iota of doubt in your mind that this is the case, just guess
who’s in charge of making the merch for the Marvel-MLS collaboration.
Just take a wild guess.
Yes, it’s Adidas!
And as you know, Messi is the biggest ever athlete on Adidas’ payroll.
So, it’s absolutely not crazy at all that the brand wrote the whole celebration thing
into Messi’s contract.
And by the way, remember this is the US we’re talking about here.
Absolutely everything is commercialized.
When we all heard that Messi would be moving to the US, we all knew it meant that Messi
would become an even bigger brand than he already is.
You might say that it’s just a celebration and he’s not actually wearing the merch
himself so it could not be marketing, but that right there is the beauty about marketing.
Something as little as a celebration from the GOAT will get people from all over the
world curious and noticing patterns, and before you know it, everybody is talking about it.
Heck, we’re talking about it right now and it was even your curiosity that made you click
on this video in the first place, so it’s definitely working!
Back to the celebrations, there’s a possibility that Messi did the Thor celebration first
on the request of his kids.
His sons are big Thor fans, so daddy was probably just indirectly giving his boys a shoutout
with that one.
Finally, there could also be a cryptic meaning in those celebrations.
It could be the club trying to say they now have a superhero who has come to save the
day.
Inter Miami have been so bad – they’re even rooted to the bottom of the MLS table
right now – but Messi has come and has immediately elevated them.
He hasn’t played an MLS game yet, but his performances in the Leagues Cup have been
nothing short of heroic.
So he may only have played a few games for Inter Miami, but he has already sent a clear
message to the club and its fans that, you know, he can be their superhero.m
Anyway, now that we’ve figured out the Marvel pattern, can you predict what celebration
Messi will do next?
With Thor and Black Panther down, what do you think is next?
Captain America?
Spider-Man?
Iron Man?
Let us know in the comments.
As for us, you know what we’d like to see?
A Hulk celebration.
I mean, how the hell would he even pull that off?
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