Messi’s son Thiago’s scintillating 11 goals for Inter Miami; the fact behind viral fans story

Lionel Messi is a modern-day football cult with fans cutting across geographies. He is widely held in high esteem for his exploits in the field and for winning for his Argentine team the last FIFA World Cup in 2022. Currently, he holds the record for most Ballon d’Ors with eight awards. After long association with Catalan club Barcelona in the Spanish League, now he plays for American club Inter Miami. 

Recently a video went viral featuring Messi’s son Thiago scoring 11 goals for Inter Miami against Atalanta United. The story praised Thiago Messi, for delivering a jaw-dropping performance by scoring 11 goals in Inter Miami U-13’s supposed 12-0 win over Atlanta United’s U-13s.

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Thiago became a member of the Inter Miami academy in 2023 following Messi’s relocation to the USA. Much like his legendary father, he is recognized for his prowess as a creative playmaker and attacking midfielder.

Besides Messi fans, top international football journalists like Fabrizio Romano have also shared the story, giving a tinge of legitimacy to the story. “We cannot predict whether Thiago Messi will reach the same heights as Leo Messi. However, one thing is certain: he is following in his father’s footsteps and demonstrating the same ambition,” Spanish Journalist Mundo Deportivo stated posting the video.

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Fact check

The DFRAC team analyzed the story in detail to unearth the reality of the viral story. While the story seemingly appears to be a harmless fan-made misleading story, the story had to be exposed in order to stop deceiving the gullible readers.

In the first stage, the team thumped through the official Facebook and Instagram accounts of Lionel Messi and Inter Miami club. No such video was found on their official handles. How can they ignore a match of such popularity?

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Again the DFRAC team analysed the match details of the video. The reports had claimed that Thiago recently has taken part in the U-13 MLS Cup and hogged the limelight with a sensational display, during his side’s 12-0 win vs Atlanta United. Thiago opened the scoring after only 12 minutes and got four more goals before half-time. Then in the second half, he took his goal tally in the match to 11.

Then the team found that there is no U-13 MLS Cup currently underway in the season. It is a part of the MLS youth development program and features teams from MLS academies across the United States and Canada. This also proved that the viral posts are misleading.

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Furthermore, the investigation team at our team analyzed the keyframes of the video to find anomalies in the video. By extracting key frames, the team found out that Thiago is seen wearing jerseys of three different colors in the video. This is against the international football rules. From this analysis also it became clear that the video was created by merging different video clips.

Conclusion

So from the probe of DFRAC, it became clear that the viral video of Thiago Messi scoring 11 goals for Miami International against Atlanta United in the U-13 MLS match is unfounded and misleading. No such match was played in the season.