Topics: Australia, Argentina, Football, Football World Cup, Lionel Messi
The Socceroos will come away from the World Cup in Qatar empty handed, but one player certainly hasn't.
Despite not playing a single minute for Australia during the campaign, youngster Cameron Devlin has somehow managed to nab Lionel Messi's shirt.
But this wasn't just any playing strip, this was the kit Messi wore during his 1,000th professional match for both club and country.
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Not a bad steal for the young Aussie.
Messi and Argentina had just defeated the Socceroos 2-1 in the Round of 16 in Qatar.
In typical Messi fashion, he was simply unplayable at times, capping off his performance with a well-taken goal – the 789th of his career.
While Messi's magic sent the Socceroos packing, there was clearly no bad blood after the match.
After being awarded Man of the Match, Messi saw Devlin standing nearby and exchanged jerseys with him.
The official FIFA Twitter account posted a video of their exchange, saying: "Class from Messi. Keeping his promise to give Socceroos midfielder Cameron Devlin his shirt after the game."
A truly priceless souvenir.
As for Messi, he was given Devlin's unworn yellow Socceroos jersey – an equally-as-priceless souvenir.
“I’m very happy for taking another step forward, achieving another objective,” Messi said after the game.
“It was a very strong and difficult match, we knew it was going to be this way. We had played very recently, we didn’t have much time to rest up. We were concerned as we knew it was going to be a very physical match and they were very strong.”
A bunch of Australia players managed to seek out the Argentinian legend for pictures too.
Marco Tilio posted a photo of the two on his Instagram, the caption reading: “To be apart of something so special and to have learnt so much. To then meeting my idol growing up and the best player in the world. I’m so grateful and feel blessed.
“Thank you Australia, what an experience.”
