Lionel Messi has been on the receiving end of a few tackles from Sergio Ramos over the course of his career, but he probably never expected he might have to deal with them in training.
With fate bringing the former rivals together at Paris Saint-Germain, the two former LaLiga Santander stars now only face each other in practice sessions. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean they are any less competitive.
A video has emerged from a PSG training session showing the Argentine forward visibly annoyed by a hard tackle from the Spanish centre back. Messi wasn’t for letting it go quickly, clearly not happy with the challenge.
In the clip, the former Barcelona man can be seen receiving the ball and moving away from the Real Madrid legend, with the latter catching him hard on the left leg when he was already well away from him.
After scoring in the mini-game, Messi stares Ramos down and despite the Spaniard’s attempts at reconciliation, Messi isn’t having it. Presumably the Argentine felt the challenge was unnecessary, avoidable and in any case far too hard for a training drill.
After another attempt at talking to Messi, Ramos turns away in frustration, likely thinking that he is exaggerating, as the Barcelona icon was clearly not ready to move on so quickly.
Neither Messi nor Ramos had the debut season in Paris that they were hoping for and will no doubt be hoping to set the record straight in 2022/23. For that to happen, they might have to start getting on a little better on the training pitch.
Ramos missed most of last season with injury and made just 12 Ligue 1 appearances. Messi, meanwhile, underwhelmed by his own standards, netting just 11 times in 34 games, his worst goalscoring season since 2004/05 when he was 17 years old.
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