Lionel Messi has revealed his Instagram account was blocked after he won the 2022 World Cup with Argentina national team in Qatar.
Lionel Messi led Argentina to their first World Cup trophy since 1986 and third World Cup trophy in the history of the tournament.
The 35-year-old revealed he was bombarded with messages even from top personalities cutting across different sports.
Speaking in his first post-World Cup interview, Lionel Messi revealed he had messages running into millions in his DM which forced Instagram to block the account.
The 2022 World Cup trophy saw Lionel Messi complete his trophy cabinet, with many pundits saying he has summarily put to rest all arguments on the GOAT debate.
After a historic and prolific career, the Barcelona legend added the coveted World Cup trophy to the list of trophies he has won.
Specifically, his World Cup final heroics enabled Argentina beat France to the trophy despite a late comeback attempt by Kylian Mbappe.
Lionel Messi was instrumental in Argentina’s 2022 World Cup winning run. After the shock defeat to Saudi Arabia, Messi guided the team to a historic comeback that saw them win two straight matches in the group against Poland and Mexico to top the group.
He led the team to round 16, quarterfinal, and semi-final wins over Australia, Netherlands, and Croatia, respectively to set up a final against defending Champions, France.
Argentina won on penalties to lift the trophy with Lionel Messi winning the most valuable player of the tournament.
He was second on the chart of highest goal-scorers in the tournament with 7 goals – one goal less than his PSG teammate and French star Kylian Mbappe who bagged a hat-trick in the final and also converted his spotkick in the penalty shootouts.
In a quote captured by ESPN after the World Cup, Lionel Messi narrates how his Instagram account was blocked after the World Cup win
”My Instagram was blocked for a few days because of the amount of messages I received after winning the World Cup,” he said.
Messi also revealed he runs his Instagram account by himself and is not using ‘any company or other person’ to manage posts. He have over 400m followers on Instagram, and is the third most followed personality on the platform.
Since returning from the World Cup, Lionel Messi has scored just once for PSG, but has still bagged 13 goals in 21 games for PSG this season.
PSG had hope to renew his deal with the club which expires at the end of the season. However, there are reports Lionel Messi is not eager to renew his PSG contract with rumors linking him to Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia.
Marca reported Messi had become less keen on PSG after winning the 2022 World Cup, and is now valueing ‘other things for the immediate future’.
