Lionel Messi hurled ‘insults’ after shirt request as details of backstage bust-up emerge | Football | Sport

Full details of Argentina captain Lionel Messi’s argument with Netherlands hero Wout Weghorst have emerged after video footage showed the Paris Saint-Germain star hurling insults at the Dutch striker. In a game full of hostility, Weghorst scored twice as Louis van Gaal’s side came back from a 2-0 deficit to take the World Cup quarter-final tie to a penalty shoot-out, where the Argentines came out on top.

Referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz dished out 17 yellow cards as tempers flared, while he also sent off Holland defender Denzel Dumfries after the final whistle had blown. Messi was pictured after the game dismissing Weghorst during his interview with TyC Sports. “What are you looking at, silly? Go over there,” Messi told the man on loan at Besiktas from Burnley.

While only a short clip emerged of the exchange, Argentine outlet Ole has spoken to the journalist who was conducting the interview, which Messi stopped to insult Weghorst. He revealed that the back-and-forth had gone on long before the interview, where Messi was insulting the striker down the tunnel and the interviewer even had to stop Messi as he was worried about what the legendary forward would say.

“After the game, they were all bickering in the locker room, not just Messi,” Esteban Edul, the interviewer, said. “[Virgil] Van Dijk was falling out with [Nicolas] Otamendi. It looked like a Lanus-Banfield or a Newel’s-Central, but it had more mouth because they were world stars. Most of Messi’s anger was about the penalty shoot-out, when the Dutch bothered the Argentines. The 19 [Weghorst] was waiting in the tunnel.”

Edul went on to add how Weghorst initially had a rather heartwarming request for Messi, but the heated Argentina captain started to “warm up” with fury and instead became embroiled in a war of words.

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