Mexican boxer Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez sparked controversy on Twitter when he posted a warning alluding to Lionel Messi, angered by a video in which the Argentine player apparently kicks a shirt of the Mexican national team after the World Cup game in Qatar.
Hours after Saturday’s game (26), a video of the Argentine players celebrating in the locker room at the Lusail stadium circulated on social networks. (see below)🇧🇷
After seeing the video, Mexican fans, including ‘Canelo’ Álvarez, were upset with Messi, considering he kicked a Mexican shirt that was on the floor of the dressing room.
In the video, Messi, sitting on a bench, tries to take off his right boot and touches the Mexican shirt with the tip of his foot.
“Did you see Messi cleaning the floor with our shirt and our flag?”, ‘Canelo’ Álvarez asked his followers on Twitter, and warned: “He better pray to God that I don’t find him!” clear threat to the Argentine star.
The Mexican boxer accompanied this tweet with ’emojis’ of two fists and an annoyed face. Five hours after it was posted, the tweet had over 18,000 responses, over 24,000 retweets, and over 136,000 likes.
“Like this [eu] respect to Argentina, [ele] have to respect Mexico,” Álvarez demanded of Messi in another tweet.
The controversy was amplified with the response of David Faitelson, an ESPN journalist, who has had previous problems with ‘Canelo’ Álvarez. Faitelson came to Messi’s defence, calling Álvarez a “coward” and a “clown” and suggesting he focus on getting a rematch with Russia’s Dmitry Bivol.
Argentine presenter Estefi Berardi published that the boxer showed “a desire to draw attention”, to which Álvarez replied “Yes, I miss him a lot”, with laughing emoticons.
Former player Sergio Agüero also reacted to the controversy.
“Seu Canelo, don’t look for excuses or problems. You certainly don’t understand football and what happens in a locker room. The shirts, always after the games are over, are on the floor due to sweat”, he wrote on Twitter.
With the result, Argentina ranked second in Group C with three points and Mexico fourth with one.
‘Canelo’ Álvarez, 32, currently holds the world super middleweight title from the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Federation Council, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization
Canelo holds the title of the World Boxing Council (WBC), the World Association (WBA) and the World Boxing Organization (WBO). He also unified the super middleweight belts by winning the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title. Canelo is the first Mexican fighter and the sixth in the world to hold all four belts.
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