The incident took place in the extra minutes of Inter Miami’s 2-2 draw with Colorado Rapids at home in the MLS tournament, April 7. At that time, Messi was turning his back to command his teammates in an effort to find a goal to reverse the loss of points at home.

A young girl somehow ran down the field from the Colorado Rapids goal wearing an Inter Miami club shirt and approached Messi very easily, put her arms around this famous player and held out her phone to take a photo. While running down the field, the young girl also put her phone in filming mode and recorded the entire event.

Messi, after a moment of surprise and confusion, “cooperated” with this girl to take a selfie. The entire incident happened in less than a few dozen seconds. Outside the stadium, coach Tata Martino expressed his disappointment because this interrupted Inter Miami’s efforts to find a goal to win the match.

The security staff on the Chase field and Messi’s personal bodyguard, Yassine Chueko (a former US Navy special forces officer), then responded and were present on the field to take the girl off the field.

Chueko has become very famous recently thanks to being Messi’s personal bodyguard, running up and down outside the field following the progress of the Argentine player on the field to prevent aggressive fans. If they are young fans or women, Chueko will let these fans take pictures with their idols before bringing them back to the stands.

Messi has just returned to play since March 13. He appeared in the second half of Inter Miami’s 2-2 draw with Colorado Rapids, contributing a goal to equalize 1-1 and assist in the 2-1 score. But at the end of the match, a mistake by Inter Miami’s defense allowed the opponent to equalize.

The draw makes Inter Miami still unable to win in 4 recent consecutive matches (2 draws, 2 losses). Messi’s team currently falls to 3rd place on the MLS 2024 Eastern region rankings with 12 points after 8 matches (3 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses).