Messi and Argentina in China, first pitch invasion – Corriere.it

In the annals of football, Argentina-Australia played at the Workers Stadium in Beijing will be remembered for Lionel Messi’s quickest ever international goal: 79 seconds into the match pass by Enzo Fernandez, two kangaroos jumped in his own way and a shot from the edge of the area. Sixty-eight thousand Chinese fans, all in delirious Albiceleste jersey.

In Beijing this friendly display goes down in history for the first pitch invasion in the capital of the socialist order: a Chinese boy with an Argentine shirt and number 10 started running chased by the Mandarin stewards, hugged the idol Messismiling and a little astonished, made a coast to coast as far as the Argentine goal, giving goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez a high five, who never backs down when it comes to partying and chaos.

On the 10th of China he lost the attendants with quick coils, while in the grandstand the people chanted Niubi in chorus, which in slang means What a beautiful find, then he lay down on the ground happy and let himself be dragged away. They released him and sent him back to the stands because he was found to be a minor. He had his 15 minutes of stardom with fans taking selfies with the invading hero. In the end the boy was interviewed, he apologized for being off the air and said that he succeeded because the stewards on the sidelines were distractedthey too were enjoying the game (one can believe that the security officer will spend his bad fifteen minutes in front of his superiors).

The match ended 2-0, Australia as the sacrificial victim didn’t take it too much. Coach Graham Arnold was impressed: I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, there were only 10 Argentine shirts in the stadium, I wish Messi they paid him a percentage on marketing. Unlikely, given that China is also the homeland of fakes. On the other hand, the money paid for the tickets is real: up to 4,800 yuan (615 euros) for a decent seat in the grandstand. The local press wrote that they had all sold out on the web in twenty minutes. Someone joked that the price doesn’t suit a socialist society and a stadium named after the Workers. But Messi-mania has driven up prices and enriched online touts. The Beijing police had warned fans not to be enchanted by scammers who promised dinners with the super champion for 300,000 yuan on Weibo. Despite the advice, several of Lionel’s faithful took rooms at the Four Seasons where Argentina was staying in the hopes of a close encounter with the idol. The hotel was surrounded by the Chinese masses, in recent days even a training session was skipped because the Argentines didn’t feel like going out in the crowd.

For Argentina, the very well-paid exhibition by the organizers was also an attempt at commercial penetration into the football movement of the People’s Republic, despite Xi Jinping’s football dream waning with the pandemic and the problems of the economy. Sooner or later, China will host the World Cup and it is said that the Argentine federation intends to set up training centers for Chinese youth. Some wondered why Argentina didn’t play against the Chinese national team instead of Australia. Two possible answers: the red federation wanted to avoid yet another defeat and perhaps they would not have liked the messian delirium of the 68,000 in the Stadio dei Lavoratori while Lionel scored in the Chinese goal.

The match with Chinese socialist characteristics had a prologue at the airport. Messi landed alone in a private jet and had problems at customs: he had shown his Spanish passport, confusing the agents waiting for Argentina. All solved in a few hours, reports the Global TimesCommunist Party newspaper.