PHOTO
Argentine forward Lionel Messi's magic continues in Qatar days after the football star led his team to a glorious World Cup victory against France in Doha. The strike made this tournament memorable for thousands of football fans, and now the host nation plans to immortalise his time in the Gulf country.
Qatar University has plans to convert the room in which Messi stayed during the sporting event into a small museum. Fans and tourists to the country can visit where the football star stayed during his last ever World Cup.
While many national teams opted to stay in hotels during the tournament, Argentine players and support staff set up the camp in student halls at Qatar University. They mostly had the same facilities and accommodations that the college students get.
According to a report, the captain was housed in room B201. It was a twin room but Messi had it to himself for most of the tournament. However, he shared the room with Sergio Aguero on the eve of the final after the former striker joined the Argentina camp as a special guest.
The seven-times Ballon D'Or winner scored two goals to lead his country to victory over France on penalties in the World Cup final ten days ago.
Messi tributes
Since Argentina's World Cup win turned Buenos Aires into a massive street party, tattoo artists have been hard at work inking the image of Lionel Messi on the bodies of fans paying tribute to the man who has come to rival the legend of the country's other soccer god, Diego Maradona.
In Argentina, where soccer generates something akin to a religious fervour, millions of men and women took to the streets on Tuesday to give the national team a hero's welcome as they toured the capital by bus after returning from Qatar.
After a night of revelry, many flocked to the city's tattoo parlours to commission designs depicting Messi, the team's star player who led Argentina to a third World Cup win.