Messi called me a donkey in my DMs, reveals ex-Liverpool defender Carragher

Jamie Carragher has disclosed that Lionel Messi sent him a series of direct messages in Spanish calling him a donkey, after the former Liverpool defender publicly argued that Paris Saint-Germain had no realistic chance of winning the UEFA Champions League while fielding Messi, Kylian Mbappé, and Neymar simultaneously.

Speaking in an interview with SPORTbible, Carragher recalled the exchange, which took place during Messi’s spell at PSG. His on-air verdict that the star-studded front line was incompatible with Champions League success clearly landed with the man at the centre of it.

“He wasn’t too happy with something I’d said about his PSG team having no chance of winning the Champions League with Messi and Mbappe and Neymar all playing at the same time,” Carragher said. “He sent me a few messages in Spanish, which I then got translated. And the gist of it was basically he called me a donkey.”

Far from taking offence, Carragher treated the rebuke as something of a distinction. “Which was fair enough coming from him,” he added. “So, yeah, if you’re going to get a message off someone who’s not happy, make sure it’s the greatest player of all time, and that’s what happened to me.”

The timing of the exchange added an extra layer of absurdity. Within twenty-four hours of firing off the message, Messi collected yet another Ballon d’Or — his eighth — leaving Carragher in the unusual position of congratulating the man who had just insulted him.

“And the next night he won the Ballon d’Or,” Carragher revealed. “I said, ‘Congratulations’, and he never messaged me back.”

Carragher, a regular and often outspoken presence in television football analysis, said Messi was the high-profile player he would most expect to confront him over his opinions — a claim the anecdote does little to contradict.