There are already several cases of Argentine footballers forced to flee their homeland: not only Messi and Di Maria, but also baby Prestianni.
The history of football is full of South American footballers, particularly Argentinians, who immediately left their homeland in order to make their fortune in Europe in teams and championships that were much better known than the local ones: events that certainly hide ambition, desire for redemption, new possibility, but that in certain cases they can turn into stories of fear and attacks against those directly involved, which do not exclude anyone, not even if your name is Lionel Messi.
Argentina “rejects” its champions: the case of the young Prestianni
Lionel Messi is for many the best footballer in the world and an entire book would be needed to tell his exploits and his contribution to European and world football: after leaving Barcelona, the team that raised him and made him famous , everyone thought of a return to his homeland like Diego Maradona did: Messi instead decided to go to Paris Saint-Germain first and then flying to the United States to wear the Inter Miami shirt after winning the first World Cup with the Argentina shirt.
The difficult and, in some ways unexpected, victory in the World Cup has certainly tied Messi even more inextricably to the Argentine people, but despite this, I don’t think the former Barcelona champion has the intention of ending his career in his homeland: this is also due to an unfortunate episode to say the least that occurred last year when some individuals from the underworld of Rosario, the footballer’s hometown, they fired 14 gunshots at the shutter of the supermarket of Antonela Roccuzzo, the champion’s wife, also leaving a threatening note for the Argentine number 10.
The case of Leo Messi, unfortunately, is not the only one: a similar episode happened to Angel Di Maria, also a native of Rosario. The former Real Madrid, PSG and Juventus player has decided to end his career at Benfica, his first European team, rather than return to his homeland: the reason would be attributable to several threats directed towards the Argentine footballer who would have been ordered not to to return to his homeland, under penalty of killing one of his family members.
Cases of underworld and crime that leave no escape even for the young talents of Argentine football: last summer the young Italian-Argentine Gianluca Prestianni, an 18-year-old who has now been purchased by Benfica, was attacked by some Argentine fans of Velez, the team he played for, following a defeat. Prestianni would have been attacked in the car, pulled by the neck and threatened heavily and this episode would have pushed the young talent to immediately leave his homeland.
