Lionel Messi Didn’t Hug His Mom As Indicated In This Viral Video!

Soon after Lionel Messi led Argentine National Team to the 2022 FIFA World Cup title, a video clip went viral, claiming to be scenes of the football superstar Messi embracing his mother during the victory celebration.

However, the FactCrescendo investigation found that the woman in the video was not Messi's mother. Let’s look at the viral claims first.

Social Media Claims

Even some of the reputed news sources in Thailand shared this viral clip as a news item, describing the scenes of Lionel Messi embracing his mother after the FIFA World Cup final victory.

Source | Archive

The original video from the news link was deleted. Yet, several other news sources have also shared the same footage.

Messi's mother comes and hugs him. A mother's pride pic.twitter.com/wgSwisREkR

— Hernán Federico Pacheco (@hernanfpacheco) December 18, 2022

Archive

The narratives claimed that the woman who ran to Messi in the clip was Lionel Messi's mother, Celia Maria Cuccittini.

Fact-Check

Fact Crescendo team did an image search of Celia Maria Cuccittini on the day of the final match and found a photo of her on the Footwearnews website. In that photo, Celia was wearing the violet jersey of the Argentina team, not the blue-and-white jersey, as seen in the clip.

(Source: Footwearnews)

However, as Reuters reported, Messi embraced his mother after the victory, as seen in the photo below. It is evident that the color of the hair of Messi’s mother is also different from that of the woman seen in the viral clip.

(Source: Reuters)

So, who is the woman seen in the viral clip?

A tweet confirmed that the woman in the blue-and-white jersey in the video was the mother of Messi's teammate and close friend, Sergio Agüero. (Kun)

actually it's kun's mother (kun is know as his best friend since ages, by the way) , and they made the mistake because she was behind him. We know our players and their families, relax.

— Angie (@AngieSancchez) December 19, 2022

(Archive)

We also made an image comparison of Agüero posing with his mother, taken from his official Instagram to an image capture from the viral video. The photo resembles Agüero’s mother rather than Messi's. (Source | Archive)

However, there is no official confirmation that the woman in the clip is Agüero’s mother.

Conclusion

A viral video is claiming scenes of Messi's mother running to hug and congratulate him on the field after the game is misleading. The woman in the blue-and-white jersey who ran to hug Messi on the field was not Messi’s mother. However, Messi’s own mother, Celia Maria Cuccittini, is also seen warmly embracing him after the victory, clad in a violet color Argentina team jersey.