The surreal feeling when rival fans chant your name

Perhaps, Kevin Mendez was on Lionel Messi’s mind last Sunday when the rival fans greeted the Barcelona talisman with a rapturous applause following his latest masterpiece.

On a night when the footballing Picasso turned Estadio Benito Villamarín, Real Betis’s home ground, into his canvas with three glorious goals — the last of which was a jaw-dropping chip from the edge of the box that dipped deliciously before going in off the crossbar, leaving the sixfoot-two Pau López, the Real Betis goalkeeper, in no-man’s land.

As a number of Betis and Barcelona players on the pitch looked at the Argentinian in disbelief, a deafening noise reverberated around Estadio Benito Villamarín.

“Messi, Messi, Messi”. The 50,000 Real Betis fans began chanting the name of a player who had just put a knife in their beloved team’s heart.

“No I can’t remember that happening before. I am grateful,” Messi said when asked if it had happened to him in his extraordinary career.

The way it had happened to Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho, the Brazilian Ronaldo and the Portuguese Ronaldo with who Messi has been engaged in a long battle to determine the best player in the world — a battle that has polarised the footballing world.

But unlike Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi undoubtedly remains the shy superstar — one who could just silently walk past you in a crowded street.

But deep inside, the competitor in Messi craves an applause from fans of a rival gang on the battle field.

Like every great performing artist that craves a heartfelt applause from a packed arena. They live for these moments. The sound of clapping hands is music to their ears.

But in the highly competitive world of football where two teams often produce gladiatorial battles, it’s not common for fans of the losing team to applaud a rival team’s player who had just delivered a knockout blow.

Despite his myriad El Clasico heroics, Messi has never received a standing ovation at Santiago Bernabeu, the home ground of Barcelona’s bitter rivals Real Madrid.

It was perhaps the reason why the Barcelona number 10 held his shirt aloft in Madrid after his match-winning goal with the last kick of an epic contest in 2017.

It was as if he wanted to show the name on the back of his shirt to the stunned Real Madrid fans.

Messi’s 500th career goal in the dying moments of the Clasico separated the victor from the vanquished that night, but still there was no ovation for the little magician.

Not that the Santiago Bernabeu is incapable of rising to its feet to applaud a rival player.

Former Barcelona icons Maradona and Ronaldinho still get goosebumps when journalists ask them about the standing ovations they received from the Madridistas for their virtuoso performance at one of the most iconic stadiums in the world.

But an ovation from the Los Blancos supporters has eluded Messi, the most prolific striker in Clasico history with 26 goals and whose breathtaking solo goal in a Champions League semifinal at the Santiago Bernabeu left the Real superstars for dead.

Real Betis is no Real Madrid, still their spontaneous chanting of his name moved Messi.

“It’s only fair and it’s right to recognise this, our fans behaved in an extraordinary way and I’m very proud of them,” said Real Betis coach Quique Setien.

“I’ve seen some magnificent players do great things but no-one can match the things Messi has done over the last 12 years. It’s a privilege to have been able to start this era with him and see him in action every weekend.”

What the Real Betis coach didn’t reveal was that he has a signed Messi shirt at his home. But Messi could be forgiven for not remembering signing his shirt for Setien because a swarm of opposition players and coaches have been pleading for his shirt during what has been an epoch-making journey with Barcelona for the iconic Argentinian.

But back in January 1996 when a nine-year-old Messi made his first foreign trip to the Peruvian capital of Lima for the International Friendship Cup — an amateur under-10 tournament — it was Kevin Mendez that got Messi’s shirt.

Messi stayed with Mendez’s family in Lima during the tournament. There was a already a buzz about the boy wonder from Argentina who was representing Newell’s Old Boys.

And those who turned up in Lima to watch Messi left with a smile on their face as the Argentine enthralled them with the full repertoire of his skills as well as that amazing ability to score goals for fun.

Newell’s Old Boys won that championship on the back of a mesmerising display from their best player.

But remarkably, Messi could have missed the first match of that tournament.

After arriving at the stadium despite a bout of food poisoning, Messi fainted before the start of the game.

The trainer told the team that he was taking Messi to the hospital.

“Hearing that Messi regained his composure,” Kevin Mendez was quoted as saying in Spanish football writer Guillem Balague’s biography on Messi.

“He drank a Gatorade and asked to play,” Mendez tells Balague.

“Newell’s won 10-0 and he scored eight goals, just in case there was any doubt that he was the best. Before he left he gave me his shirt.”

Since the best players are not judged on people making a beeline for their shirts, it’s highly unlikely that Messi, 31, will ever find a place in the pantheon of World Cup champions.

But he certainly holds a very special place in every football lover’s heart.

And Kevin Mendez’s is one such heart.