As it was in the beginning! Messi, Rocuzzo throwback tickles fans

Argentinian newspaper La Capital has  published  a  picture, showing Lionel Messi  and the stunning mum of their three sons as children nearly two decades before they became man and wife, enjoying themselves in the Atlantic holiday resort of Punta Mogotes. Messi was playing in a youth football tournament in the nearby city of Balcarce.

Antonela, who was about to turn 10 and was already a close friend of the footballer, had travelled to the area with her parents to see her cousin Lucas Scaglia, who was one of Messi’s teammate

The photo, showing the pair with other children including Lucas and another team-mate called Matias Pecce, was taken in January 1998.

Antonela’s parents were among the mums and dads who took the youngsters to Punta Mogotes during a day off from the boys’ football tournament but Messi’s mum and dad, Jorge and Celia, stayed in their native city of Rosario, an eight-hour drive away

It was not clear on Monday if the footballer, who the Pope insisted was ‘very good’ but not God in a recent interview, has ever seen the picture.

It is going viral after the work of a La Capital journalist tracking it down and publishing it.

The paper said it had taken three years to uncover it after several members of its editorial team had set about trying to find a photo of Messi in Mar del Plata, a famous resort which most Argentinians visit at some point in their childhood

Messi travelled to the area in January 1998 to play for Newell’s Old Boys, one of Rosario’s two best-known teams.

Local reports said his youth team won the tournament they played in – known as El Mundialito and featuring youngsters from Argentinian teams like Boca Juniors, River Plate and Velez Sarsfield – that year.

A broken arm prevented Messi from playing in the same tournament the following year and he had to watch from the sidelines as his team was knocked out in the semi-final stages.

Bruno Verdenelli, a journalist with La Capital, revealed he was sent the photo by Messi’s old team-mate Matias Pecce after a lengthy attempt to find images of the footballer in Mar del Pla

Messi, regarded by many as the best player of all time, married Antonela in a glitzy wedding in Rosario on June 30, 2017.   They have three children – Thiago, six, Mateo, three, and Ciro, one.