SELFIE WITH MESSI

                                                 

Football season is almost over. The highlight for me will be the Manchester City vs FC Barcelona Champions League 2nd round game at the Etihad stadium...and a selfie with Lionel Messi. Not in the usual way though...

I was in a queue at the Tesco close to the Etihad stadium impatiently waiting to be served by the staff. I noticed two youths, in their late teens, clad in black at the front bit of the queue, glaring at me or so it seemed.

I thought they were trying to knock my confidence initially, so I put my game face on and stared back at them. Then belatedly, I realized that they seemed to be looking through me. I may well have been invisible to them.

I turned around and noticed for the first time, the midget behind me. But there was something about this man. I gawked at him for a few seconds further and that’s when the realization hit me. Lo and behold standing behind me was arguably the greatest footballer to ever grace God’s Earth. Under his arm, he clutched his groceries like a Jamaican grandma at Kilburn on a Saturday morning.  No, it can’t be.

“Lionel Messi?”

“Si.”

Now, my knowledge of Spanish is very limited. No, my Spanish is non-existent. I had no clue what to say next. First thing that popped up in mind was “selfie” selfishly. Surely “selfie” is “selfie” in Spanish, no? It couldn’t be “selfisto” or “que selficado” or something like that, could it?

“Selfie?” I half-pleaded hopefully. He smiled. I took that as a yes. Surely, there must be enough hangers-on in the FC Barcelona dressing room who would’ve more than happily run this errand for Lionel Messi. He could’ve sent Thomas Vermaelen, since most people wouldn’t have recognized him anyway (I was around the Etihad not the Emirates). Why did he come out all by his bloody self?

Anyway, without further ado, I whipped out my cracked-screen iPhone which had less than 20% power left in the battery and went to work on the selfies. I will try and take as many as possible and select two afterwards – one to be framed for my living room wall and the other purposefully to get my Social Media pages lit up the next day. 

I had had a few pictures in the past with so-called big names and I always made it a point NOT to smile. I made it a point NOT to appear star-struck (what did that even mean?). After all, they breathed the same air as me. But Lionel Messi is from another planet. This was no average superstar. This was a superstar’s superstar. So I could be forgiven for cheesing in the images. I was baring all 32s grinning from ear to ear like a buffoon.

That was the entire cue, the two hooded young’uns needed. They came over and got a couple of selfies of their own before running out excitedly out of the shop. They didn’t even take the items they had paid for.

Then seemingly out of thin air came scores and scores of girls. Maybe the guys had told them. There were tall ones, short ones, slim ones, thick ones of all races and creed – white girls, violet, Japanese girls, pinky green girls, Eskimo girls and Blacks.

Not a single one asked for an autograph. It was selfie and pouting galore. Then the strange thing happened – they asked me to be in their shots. They must’ve thought I was Leo Messi’s black cousin or maybe they thought I was Dani Alves or something. I felt honoured, I complied. But if this was a day in the life of Lionel Messi I wondered how he’d managed to stay on the safer side of sanity all these years.

Just then a Black girl leaned forward and instead of pouting for a selfie, she started kissing me on my neck. She went further and licked my neck. What the hell is going on? Then she purred and shrieked…

What?

That was when I woke up.IT WAS ALL A DREAM(Notorious voice)! All that had been nothing but a funky dream.

And the black pussy – not what you’re thinking – was my big black pussy cat Stanley Aborrah licking my neck. Yuck! Yikes! I didn’t even like cats like that; I was use to them because my partner adored them. I pushed him away.I had no idea for how long he had been licking the melanin off my neck. It was the closest I'd come to hitting a cat but of course I didn't. I won't hurt a fly.

I wasn’t at Tesco with screaming girls around me, I was in my sofa at home curled up with pussies (cats) looking at me making loud cat noises like sirens because I had not fed them before I left earlier that evening. Damn. There was no Lionel Messi just an over-dressed analyst on TV saying his name. Damn.

                         

                          A FEW HOURS EARLIER

I had been at the Manchester City vs FC Barcelona Champions League game earlier (and that was no dream). I had seen Arab money at work at the Etihad in other games previously. Yet this was an extraordinary spectacle; a star-studded array of 22 men chasing after a leather ball. The combined worth of the players on the pitch and the substitutes' bench could easily pay a small country’s debt off.

I took it all in.

The match itself was pretty predictable. I had mentioned on my Facebook status that it was highly likely that FC Barcelona will finish the game with a man (or three) advantage(fact check this). English opposition seeing a red card against the Catalunyans was as certain as a green pitch. [Over the years, players have been sent off for as much as breathing on Barca players – Celestine Babayaro, Didier Drogba, John Terry, Asier del Horno for FC Chelsea. Jens Lehmann, Gillies Grimandi and Robin Van Persie for Arsenal FC. So I was not surprised when Gael Clichy joined Pablo Zabaleta and Martin Demichiles as City players to have seen red against the Catalans on that night].

At certain points, especially after the red card, it felt like a rondo session with the Blaugrana bossing it. Just like at the World Cup, the indefatigable Luis Suarez gave Joe Hart a torrid time.

Most memorable incident, to me, was the FC Barca penalty in injury time. I saw a few people in the crowd twisting like the DNA strands of contortionists trying to take selfies to coincide with Messi’s penalty and trying to see the kick live in their peripheral vision all at the same time.

Joe Hart saved the penalty and Lionel Messi’s attempt to hit the net with the rebound was a fail as his header from less than 12 yards missed the target. (Eden Hazard scored in a similar incident against Crystal Palace in the Premier League much later in the season). The crowd inside the stadium had witnessed something historic, cue bedlam: everybody was on their feet and Joe Hart was celebrating like he had just won England’s first World Cup since 1966. Who could blame him?

I had come back home and instead of going to sleep like most normal human beings, I put on the TV to catch the highlights of the game, I had only just watched live. Like they say, you can’t cheat nature and your storyteller (me, that's who) fell asleep watching the TV, before the Messi penalty.

It could have been the commentary in the background as I slept, combined with the double cheeseburger and 1L Pepsi that I had had earlier and the killer kenkey and UK-made choffee that I had later when I came home. But whatever it was, I was so saddened that the selfie with the Great Messi had been just a dream. 

I was so disappointed I was a bit worried about how disappointed I was. I smiled at the cats, cuddled Stanley Aborrah and took a selfie with him instead.