In a pre-season game for the Joan Gamper trophy between Barcelona and AS Roma, Lionel Messi lost his cool and headbutted Roma’s centre back Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa. After that, Messi even caught the Central African Republic defender by the neck. This was very un-Messi like behaviour and shocked a lot of fans.
It is possible that the defender had provoked Messi, which made him lose his temper. Both of them were cautioned by the referee. But many may argue that a red card was in order for the Barcelona forward’s actions.
But Messi did not let the incident get to his head, scoring Barcelona’s second goal just 10 minutes after the incident. He also had the last laugh as the Catalans won 3-0.
Watch a clip of the headbutt incident:
Here is a longer version of the same incident that shows how things went down:
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