The court of Catalonia has sentenced Lionel Messi and his father Jorge to 21 months in prison for evading more than €4 million in owed tax payments. However, since the sentence is less than two years and both of the accused have a clean criminal record, they’ll likely escape serving any time behind bars.
Lionel Messi’s past and present Barcelona teammates have leapt to his defense following the Argentine’s shocking decision to retire from international football following Argentina’s defeat at the hand’s of Chile in the 2016 Copa America Centenario final.
If Lionel Messi was trying to make a political statement when he announced his retirement from the Argentina National Team, he got the attention of the man in whose direction such things are usually pointed: Argentina President Mauricio Macri.
Macri tweeted yesterday that he hopes the to watch La Pulga play for La Albiceleste "for years to come."
We're going to preface this article by saying this: Diego Maradona was a great player and is one of the legends of the game. Good, now that that's out of the way, Diego Maradona is a huge hypocrite.
In many ways, the Copa America Centenario resembled an A-Plus B-movie; an event so bizarre that it couldn’t help but capture the imagination.
From Brazil’s decision to essentially forfeit before the matches had even kicked off, to the final drama of Lionel Messi retiring from international football after missing a decisive penalty kick, the 2016 Copa America was camp to the extreme — it had a certain self-acknowledged theatricality.
On Sunday, spectators were given an unconstrained glimpse into the mind of Lionel Messi, a footballer whose cryptic statements and enigmatic private life only add to his magical legend.
Messi’s a consummate professional, dedicated to the game on an otherworldly level. Argentina’s crushing defeat to Chile in the 2016 Copa America Centenario final gave proof to his wholehearted devotion to the cause.
Messi has come out and said he plans to retire from the Argentina National Team. Is he serious?
I don't think he is. Not even a little bit. This is an empty threat by Lionel Messi and his teammates. Despite speculation being that Sergio Aguero, Javier Mascherano and others could follow Messi’s lead and retire from Albiceleste duty, this comes, not only after another final defeat, but during a time when Argentine Football is undergoing a massive organizational transition.
Following a penalty shootout loss to Chile in the Copa America Centenario final in which he missed a penalty in a shootout for the first time in his international career, Lionel Messi announced his retirement from the Argentina National Team.
Chile has beaten Argentina in a penalty shoot-out in the Copa America final for the second time in two years.
Arturo Vidal got Chile off the the most inauspicious start possible in the penalty shootout when he had his opening penalty saved.
But then the impossible happened. In a shocking turn of events, Lionel Messi missed Argentina’s next penalty, failing to capitalize on Vidal’s miss and put Argentina ahead.