World Cup 2022: Lionel Messi and his companions celebrate with a fake version of the gold trophy – the photo on Instagram becomes a success

Consequently, Messi and his companions should not have paraded through the stadium with the original trophy, but carried a replica in their hands.

It is said that the famous image on the shoulders of Sergio Agüero was created with this replica, which has become the most liked image (over 74 million likes) on Instagram. On the post, Messi is seen holding a World Cup trophy, which he hands out to the Argentine fans at the Lusail stadium.

However, the procedure is not unusual. As the players approach the fans, the original trophy is taken back by FIFA officials and a replica of the trophy is presented. This is to prevent the trophy from being damaged or stolen.

The peculiarity of this victory celebration, however, was that the trophy with which Messi and his companions celebrated did not come from FIFA, but from two Argentine fans. As he claims to have learned “El País”, two Argentine fans named Manuel and Paula simply wanted to collect the players’ signatures on the piece. But then the trophy went through the entire Argentine team and was used for all kinds of photos.

Confusingly similar fake version

The home-made trophy has been used several times by national team members on the field, explained Manuel and Paula. “The first time the trophy was taken by a relative of Leandro Paredes, who then signed”, the two described the situation: “The second time they asked for the trophy again and it took 45 minutes, it went from a player to player, family member to family member, and they took pictures.”

In the end, Ángel Di María returned the trophy to the owners with some player signatures on it.

The fact that at first no one noticed that it was just a fake version of the World Cup was due to the detailed design of the two fans. The trophy looked so real that even a FIFA official appeared to approach the two fans and ask if it was really just a replica of the real trophy.