Barcelona were hardly at their fluid best but still managed to see off Sporting Lisbon on Wednesday evening thanks to a scruffy Luis Suarez header that deflected in off former Liverpool and Stoke defender Sebastian Coates.
Despite having a quiet night by his own imperious standards, Lionel Messi was still the centre of attention, especially for a young Barca fan who breached the perimeter hoardings in a desperate attempt to interact with his idol.
After evading security, the boy sprinted over to Messi with his arms open wide, with the Argentinian star doing the decent thing and responding with a big hug and a brief chat, only to get his boots kissed in turn…
MESSI SIEMPRE MESSI. En la casa de mi primo cr a 7. pic.twitter.com/u06648AEqX
— Cristian Cruyff (@CristianCruyff) September 27, 2017
Of course it doesn’t take much more than a modicum of basic human decency, but Messi is always so good with these hero-worshipping kids. Relaxed, open and happy to oblige.
That said, whether his representatives are able to remain quite so calm about these fairly frequent security breaches is another question entirely.