Led by superstar Lionel Messi, the Argentinian world champions set off for their big fan parade and victory celebration in Buenos Aires.
Shortly after 11:30 a.m. local time, the open-top double-decker bus drove with the team from the Argentine Football Association grounds on the outskirts of the city towards the center of the obelisk, where hundreds of thousands of fans had been gathering since the early hours of the morning. Millions of people cheered their heroes frenetically at the landmark of the metropolis after the final victory against France on Sunday. President Alberto Fernández had ordered a national holiday for Tuesday so the country could celebrate the victory.
Messi sat on the bus on a raised platform with four of his team-mates, kept drinking from a glass in the bright sunshine and waved to the thousands of euphoric fans. The golden World Cup trophy was also presented. The bus made very slow progress and kept stalling.
Some chaotic scenes
In the course of the morning, before the celebration in the Argentine capital, there were sometimes chaotic scenes at completely overcrowded train stations and on the trains. The airline Aerolíneas Argentinas also warned of problems with delayed flights due to the traffic chaos. Cell phone networks were also overloaded at times.
Earlier, Messi kept his fans updated with pictures on social media. After arriving in Buenos Aires at night and driving past thousands of fans, Argentina's superstar took a little break. And the newly crowned soccer world champion was not alone in bed - next to him was the golden World Cup trophy. The 35-year-old posted three photos on Instagram, in the first he is "sleeping" in bed, his left hand on the trophy, in the second he smiles at the camera with the trophy and in the third he is with a trophy and a mate- see cup. "Good morning!" Messi captioned the photos, which received more than 28 million likes just three hours after they were published.
Messi with milestone on Instagram
In addition, Messi had set a milestone on Instagram. A post by the 35-year-old with photos showing him and the World Cup trophy celebrating after winning the final against France on Sunday received more than 56.2 million likes on the social network by the morning, and the trend was rising. With this, Messi overtook the post from the account "world_record_egg", which was previously considered the most liked Instagram post. The photo of an egg was posted on January 4, 2019 with the aim of setting a world record. By Tuesday morning, it had received more than 55.9 million likes.
After landing at Ezeiza Airport on Tuesday night, the Argentinian team, which had been on the road for more than 20 hours, first took the bus to the Argentinian association. There, too, thousands of fans had already cheered for their idols. After a short night, Messi had breakfast
