Things go Messi for lookalike
IRANIAN student Reza Parastesh looks so much like his sporting hero Lionel Messi that it almost landed him in jail for disrupting public order this week.
So many people wanted to take selfies with Parastesh in the western city of Hamedan at the weekend that police rushed him into a station and impounded his car to stop the chaos and clear traffic.
The resemblance is so uncanny that Eurosport UK reportedly used his photo by accident on Twitter recently, when talking about the real Messi.
The furore began a few months ago when Parastesh’s soccer-mad father pressured the 25-year-old into posing in a No 10 Barcelona jersey and sending the pictures to a sports website.
“I sent them one night and by the morning they had called me and said I should come in quickly for an interview,” Parastesh said.
He soon grew into his new role, cutting his hair like Messi and often donning the Barca jersey.
It has paid off – he is fully booked for interviews and has even landed modelling contracts.
“Now people really see me as the Iranian Messi and want me to mimic everything he does,” Parastesh said.
Iranians are obsessed with soccer, and Parastesh finds himself constantly besieged by fans looking for a selfie.
In the last game between Iran and Argentina during World Cup 2014, when Messi’s 91st-minute goal robbed the Islamic republic of a place in the last 16, Reza’s dad was furious.
“After the game, my dad called me and said: ‘Don’t come back home tonight. Why did you score a goal against Iran?’ I said: ‘But that wasn’t me!’ ” Parastesh said, laughing.