Superstar Lionel Messi was awakened from his slumber by his Argentine team-mates to celebrate his 34th birthday on Thursday.
Wielding a birthday cake and singing ‘Happy Birthday’, they invaded Messi’s room at their Copa America base in Brazil and made sure he received his presents in the middle of the night, with the gifts handed over by Angel Di Maria, Nicolas Otamendi and other team-mates appearing to include a huge bottle of water, a baseball cap and a bottle of wine.
Messi was seemingly thrilled by the pleasant midnight surprise although his room-mate and old buddy Sergio Aguero was apparently unimpressed and was seen pulling the bed covers back over his head and going back to sleep.
Messi wrote: ‘Thank you very much for a special day, even though I am not with the family who I miss a lot at the moment.’
Although the Argentina squad are in a Covid-secure bubble away from friends and family for the duration of their stay at the tournament, the circumstances haven’t diminished their success on the field.
They currently top Group A with seven points following 1-0 wins over Uruguay and Paraguay plus a 1-1 draw with Chile in which Messi scored their first goal of the Copa.
Argentina sit out the latest round of fixtures on Thursday before concluding the group phase against Bolivia in Cuiaba on Monday next week.
The pressure is off in that fixture with Argentina already assured of their passage into the quarter-finals.