They said that he would be better than Messi, now he sells children's clothes to earn money
Lionel Messi has been compared to hundreds of players, but this one did not age well…
'The new Messi'. For more than a decade that phrase has been replicated over and over again before the appearance of each new young promise of world football. However, none of them could resemble the numbers and the level of the best player in history. And while Lionel Messi became the 2022 World Cup champion in Qatar, one of those players ended up selling children's clothing to survive.
It all started from the 2007-08 season. There, when Pep Guardiola had not yet begun to direct what would later be one of the best teams in history, a boy appeared who dazzled everyone at Barcelona 'B'. The Spanish coach was the DT of that team and I saw him game after game, being a figure and earning the nickname of 'new Messi'.
Beyond the rumors and the adjectives with which the press and Barça fans used to describe this player, in the end he was never able to stand out in the First Division, much less come close to the level and numbers of the 7-time Ballon d'Or winner. He went unnoticed by 10 other clubs and ended up selling children's clothing to survive.
Who is the 'New Messi' who now sells children's clothing?
The footballer who was compared to Lionel Messi in his early days and now sells clothes to survive is the Israeli Gai Assulin, who in various interviews confessed that being put on a par with the best in history hurt him a lot. "The negative part is that in all the clubs I was, they expected me to be like him and score 50 goals per season," he said.
