Real Madrid has reportedly banned customers from personalizing their new shirts with the name of Lionel Messi, given the player’s links with arch-rival Barcelona.
In a wild tale told by a passionate soccer fan, he claims his antics have led Real Madrid to ban any printing of Lionel Messi’s name on its new shirts.
YouTuber Grefg shared his story in a video on his channel where he detailed an attempt to order the new Real Madrid away kit with ‘Messi‘ as the custom name. To his surprise, a message quickly flashed up, stating: “Apologies, our personalization policy does not allow the use of this name.”
But this die-hard fan wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. Cleverly, he tried spacing out the letters — inputting ‘M E S S I’ — and momentarily tricking the system.
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The plot thickened, though, when the club’s online store spotted the ruse, nixed the order, returned his money, and fortified the ban on printing Messi’s name on their shirts in any variation. Undeterred, Grefg made another attempt during a live Twitch session with his followers. Once more he keyed in ‘M E S S I’, spaces and all, but this time the personalization policy was watertight, reports the Mirror.
Reflecting on the episode, the YouTuber remarked: “You could say that we have made them put a new restriction on the website and now they won’t let you order it even if you write M E S S I with spaces.”
Throughout his legendary tenure at Barcelona, Messi was nothing short of a nightmare for Real Madrid, netting 26 goals and delivering 14 assists against them, on top of winning 20 clashes and clinching 10 La Liga crowns. Notably, in his earlier days, Messi once scored a hat-trick during a pulsating El Clasico in 2007 which ended in a 3-3 draw cementing his status as a continual spike in Madrid’s side during his peak years.
The Messi vs Ronaldo rivalry was at its zenith when they were both playing for Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively, with the Argentine often having the upper hand. One El Clasico that stands out in terms of Messi’s dominance over his rival team is the away game at the Bernabeu during the 2013/14 season.
Lionel Messi of Argentina looks on prior to the CONMEBOL Copa America group A match between Argentina and Canada at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Image: Getty Images)
Messi played a crucial role in all four of Barcelona’s goals as they clinched a 4-3 victory and ultimately secured the La Liga title that season. Messi set up midfielder Andres Iniesta to take the lead before Karim Benzema quickly responded with two goals to flip the script.
Messi then weaved into the area and scored to level the match just before half-time, with Ronaldo converting a penalty in the second half to put Madrid in front. However, after defender Sergio Ramos received a straight red card, Messi sealed the win for Barcelona with two penalties of his own.
So, it’s not hard to see why Real Madrid’s online store has prohibited the printing of his name onto their football kits, perhaps as a quiet nod of respect to themselves and Messi’s legacy at his former club.
Liverpool.com says: Why would anyone want to get Messi’s name on the back of a Real Madrid shirt? Why has Real Madrid thought about it and made a move to prevent it? There really can’t be that many people who have even thought about trying such a thing.
