Lionel Messi

The World Cup was an absolute shit show for Argentine manager Jorge Sampaoli. Jettisoned into the job in May of 2017 as the savior of Argentina’s horrendous qualifying campaign, the former Sevilla boss managed to secure passage to Russia on the final match day (although Lionel Messi’s hat trick in Quito certainly helped).

However, with one armageddon avoided, the next promptly arrived — the finals themselves revealed what many had known about La Albiceleste since the cycle began: The beaten 2014 finalists weren’t very good anymore, apart from Messi.

Valencia opened Sunday’s LaLiga match against Barcelona at the Mestalla in complete control. Two minutes in, Ezequiel Garay gave the hosts the lead after Thomas Vermaelen failed to deal with a corner and the ball somehow eluded Luis Suarez, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba on its way to Garay.

Over the next 20 minutes, Michy Batshuayi forced Marc-Andre ter Stegen into a fine save and Geoffrey Kondogbia whistled an effort past the upright. Barcelona had offered little of its own in the final third, but that all changed spectacularly in the 23rd minute.

FIFA 19 came out a week ago and with it a number of new celebrations made it into the game. After Wednesday’s Champions League match between Barcelona and Tottenham, there’s a new celebration EA Sports needs to patch into its game ASAP. But what the heck was the Lionel Messi celebration meaning?