Writer @Lemoncitylive.com / Beat writer @IMCF/[email protected]/Opinions are my own/Storyteller of sports & life/ I see the world in a different way
Joined February 2012
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Xavier Guerrero retweeted
Cuentan que la tradición empezó hace 4 Clásicos. Richard Ortíz, capitán de Olimpia, cada vez que salía a reconocer el terreno de juego de Cerro antes del Clásico Paraguayo, lo hacía en zapatillas (ojotas, chanclas - como le digan en sus países). Como quien sale "al patio de su casa" dicen los hinchas de Olimpia.
Ayer, lo volvió a hacer aunque al principio se lo impidieron. Y sus compañeros siguieron la tradición.
Olimpia ganó y no pierde en el estadio de Cerro Porteño hace 5 años. Qué lindos que son los clásicos sudamericanos.
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
La mamá le preguntó al hijo que qué quería de cumpleaños. Él le responde que quiere que Agustín Canobbio (jugador del Flu, su ídolo) vaya a su cumpleaños.
La mamá le escribe a Canobbio por Instagram y lo invita al cumpleaños. Canobbio llega y sorprende a todos. Espectacularr.
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
🗣️ “¡NUEVAMENTE LA LLAVE DEL CANDADO! ¡LA CLAVE DE LA CAJA FUERTE! ¡HACIENDO FÁCIL LO EXTRAORDINARIO! ¡FROTA LA LÁMPARA EL 10!”
Leo Messi se disfruta más en español… 🔊
🎙️ @sadovnik1965
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
"Llevemos al abuelo a la cancha para que se relaje". ⚽️ 😅
El abuelo: 🤬
Vía scespn/IG
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
🚨 OFFICIAL: The 26-men shortlist for the FIFPRO Men’s World 11, voted by 19,806 footballers in 73 countries.
🇧🇪 Thibaut Courtois
🇦🇷 Emiliano Martínez
🇪🇸 David Raya
🇪🇸 Pau Cubarsí
🇪🇸 Marc Cucurella
🇳🇱 Virgil van Dijk
🇧🇷 Gabriel Magalhães
🇲🇦 Achraf Hakimi
🇵🇹 Nuno Mendes
🇫🇷 William Saliba
🇫🇷 Dayot Upamecano
🏴 Jude Bellingham
🇵🇹 Bruno Fernandes
🇦🇷 Enzo Fernández
🇪🇸 Pedri
🏴 Declan Rice
🇪🇸 Rodri
🇵🇹 Vitinha
🇳🇴 Erling Haaland
🏴 Harry Kane
🇬🇪 Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
🇫🇷 Kylian Mbappé
🇦🇷 Lionel Messi
🇫🇷 Michael Olise
🇵🇹 Cristiano Ronaldo
🇪🇸 Lamine Yamal
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
11 seasons for # 11 💙
Alejandro Bedoya has announced his retirement at the conclusion of the 2026 season.
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
🚨 Thierry Henry on Lionel Messi’s incredible performance against New England Revolution:
“Do you know what I find frightening about Lionel Messi? He’s 39 years old, and defenders are still making the same mistakes against him that they were making fifteen years ago.
And I don’t even blame them sometimes.
Look at that winning goal against New England Revolution. Watch the defender. He’s there. He’s in position. He’s looking directly at Messi. He knows who’s standing in front of him.
And then, within a second, the situation has completely changed.
That’s what people don’t understand about Leo.
You can study him all week. Your manager can show you videos. You can spend the entire training session preparing for what he likes to do.
Then the match starts, he moves his feet twice, and everything you discussed during the week becomes useless.
People talk about his pace declining. Of course it has declined. He’s 39. What do you expect?
But his feet? My goodness.
There are players in their early twenties who cannot move the ball that quickly in such a small space.
And the most ridiculous thing is that he doesn’t even look like he’s doing anything particularly difficult.
You see the defender trying to work out whether Messi is going left or right. By the time he’s made his decision, Leo has already finished the action.
That’s not normal.
But I’ll tell you something. The winning goal wasn’t even the moment that impressed me most.
Go back and watch the equaliser.
New England are leading 1-0. Inter Miami need something. Messi gets involved in the build-up, the ball moves between his teammates, and suddenly he’s running into the penalty area.
Now, look at the defenders.
There are two big men following this little Argentine into the box. Both are taller than him. Both know he’s dangerous.
And I imagine one of them is thinking, ‘Surely they’re not going to put the ball in the air for him.’
Well, they did.
And Messi gets his head to it and finds Berterame.
That’s the part I love.
Because if you’re defending against Messi, you spend your life worrying about his left foot. You don’t want him shooting. You don’t want him dribbling. You don’t want him turning.
Now he’s creating goals with his head between two defenders who should be winning that ball.
What exactly are you supposed to take away from him?
And people will say, ‘Thierry, it’s MLS.’
Okay. Fine.
But the defenders are professional footballers. They’re not standing there because they want Messi to score. They’re trying to stop him.
And at 39, he’s still making grown men look like they need another training session.
I played with Leo. I’ve seen what he does when the cameras aren’t there. I’ve watched him make things look so simple that you almost forget how difficult they are.
But even I find myself watching him now and thinking, ‘Leo, seriously? You’re still doing this?’
Because there comes a point in a footballer’s career when you expect certain things to disappear.
The acceleration. The sharpness. That little movement that gives you half a yard.
With Messi, you keep waiting for those things to go away.
And every time you think you’ve finally seen the signs, he produces something like this.
Inter Miami were losing. He created the equaliser and scored the winner.
At 39.
I don’t know how much longer he wants to play. That’s his decision.
But I can tell you one thing.
If I’m a defender preparing to face Lionel Messi tomorrow, I’m not interested in hearing how old he is.
I want somebody to explain to me how I’m supposed to stop him.”
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
Marty has run the New York City Marathon every year since 1980 and finished his 43rd tonight as the last man across the line. He said it would be his final one his mind is still willing, but his body isn’t.
A remarkable way to end the streak. Congratulations on 43 NYC Marathons, Marty. ❤️
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The runner’s name is James Thomas, not Marty. The person who filmed and spoke with him (@MickmickNYC) confirmed this. He is not the 90-year-old Marty Granoff (who ran his 6th NYC Marathon in 2026, last previously in 1983).
Source: x.com/MickmickNYC/st…
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
😂 Messi only recently became Dr. Messi, but it turns out he’s been Argentina’s unofficial psychologist for years!
Leandro Paredes revealed that Messi was already giving his teammates psychological consultations for free! 😭
Paredes: “Leo could be our psychologist because, at least with me and Rodri, he tells us things, he scolds us. He brings us back down to earth whenever we mess up.”
Paredes was also asked to assign different roles to his Argentina teammates:
👑 Best leader? Messi.
⏰ Most punctual? Lautaro Martínez.
😂 Biggest joker? Rodrigo De Paul.
📚 Most studious? Giovani Lo Celso.
🧠 Best advisor? Messi.
🧿 Most superstitious? Ángel Di María.
Turns out Dr. Messi had years of experience before he even got his title! 😂
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
The scariest guy on the start line of the New York City Marathon on Sunday had never run a marathon.
He'd never even run 26.2 miles in practice. And he picked New York a full year ago for a reason that sounds completely backwards. It's one of the slowest courses in the sport.
He's Andreas Almgren, the Swede who won the world half marathon title in September, and slow was the whole plan.
Most of the big marathons like London, Berlin, Chicago and Tokyo pay pacemakers to drag the leaders through world record splits for most of the race. Those races basically turn into time trials. Whoever can hold the pace the longest wins, and that's usually a guy with 2:02 on his resume.
New York got rid of pacemakers in 2007. Then it throws five bridges at you. The Verrazzano climbs over 150 feet in the very first mile, and Fifth Avenue gains about another 100 between miles 22 and 23, right when your legs are toast.
So nobody runs fast there. The last two winners ran 2:07 and 2:08. The world record is 1:59:30, and New York's course record is 2:04:58. Almgren built his entire debut inside those five and a half minutes.
When nobody's chasing a clock, the pack stays bunched up for 20-plus miles and the whole thing comes down to who still has a sprint left in Central Park. Benson Kipruto won it last year by a hair at the line.
Almgren started out as an 800 meter runner. He ran 1:45.59 back in 2015, which is the kind of finishing speed marathoners almost never carry. He told Swedish TV in August his plan was to sit with the leaders and sprint for the win, and that he'd worry about a fast time on a flat course next year.
Honestly, it's a miracle he made it to a start line at all.
He played soccer for AIK in Stockholm until he was 18 and quit because he kept getting hurt. Running wasn't much kinder to him. He lost about four years to stress fractures, including a broken bone in his foot and a fractured sacrum in 2019, and in 2024 a shin injury knocked him out of the Paris Olympics the day before his 5,000 meter heat.
That sacrum injury ended up shaping how he trains. While he was rehabbing he copied the Norwegian double threshold method from another Swedish runner, Kalle Berglund, where you do two controlled hard sessions in the same day. He still does it every Tuesday and Thursday, and he writes most of his own plan. For this build he ran over 2,000 km in ten weeks with three runs out to 40K. He also spent months training his stomach to handle around 120 grams of carbs an hour, because you can't sprint in Central Park on an empty tank.
He was honest about the part he couldn't train for. He said he'd learned how to suffer for about an hour, and two hours felt like walking into a new world. When it gets bad, he tells himself "don't be a crybaby."
Going into Sunday, no European-born man had won New York since Giacomo Leone in 1996. The guy on his shoulder in this clip is Yeman Crippa, who won the Paris Marathon this year and picked New York because the hills reminded him of Paris.
What you're watching is the last four minutes of a race Almgren started planning last November.
The final 4-5 minutes of the NYC Marathon.
I can't fathom this bloke was running marathon for the first time and he never showed grimace that he was in pain.
That's why the commentators were also saying it seems Andreas Almgren is putting up a show like he was meant to run the marathon distance.
Andreas Almgren has run one of the best performances of his lifetime.
A huge shoutout to Yeman Croppa as well as no one was talking about Yeman Croppa but he has delivered on the biggest stage of marathoning and that battling out with Almgren at the end.
Don't forget Andreas Almgren couldn't compete in 2016 Rio Olympics, 2021 Tokyo Olympics & 2024 Paris Olympics because of the injuries.
KEEP SHOWING UP.
DON'T BACK DOWN.
@WorldAthletics @nyrr @CitiusMag @nypost @Nike
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
Lionel Messi's best advice to the kids in Inter Miami's academy is to walk more.
Sounds like a joke until you see his World Cup numbers. Across his first five games this summer, the summer he turned 39, Messi covered 631 meters at top speed. Total. That's less than two laps around a high school track, and he scored eight goals in those same five games.
Do the math and it comes out to about one goal for every 79 meters of sprinting.
Speed is the first thing age steals from a soccer player. It peaks somewhere in your mid-20s and slides from there, and for most forwards that slide is what ends the career. Messi just quit relying on it.
What he's doing on those walks is homework. He's said that when he walks, he's reading where the defenders are standing and working out how to lose his marker. Pep Guardiola used to say a walking Messi was busy sniffing out the weakest guy in the back four. The academy kid's version, as David Beckham told it, was even simpler. Walk more, because you see more.
Then there's basic physics. A defender charging at full speed carries a lot of momentum, and he needs a few steps to brake before he can turn. A guy starting from a walk needs about one. So a 39-year-old who's barely moving wins the first two steps against a 25-year-old who's flying. That's why so many of his highlights look like defenders running past a man standing still.
And it held up against the best teams on earth. He set up two late goals to beat England 2-1 in the World Cup semifinal. Argentina's coach built the whole team around it, with everyone else covering way more ground so Messi didn't have to.
Tonight in Foxborough, in front of 54,112 people with Miami down 1-0, he flicked a header back to Germán Berterame for the equalizer and then scored the winner in the 83rd minute. That's 26 league goals this season, at 39.
Messi once admitted he used to hide behind a tree to skip running laps as a kid at Newell's. Decades later he's passing that same habit down to the next generation, and somehow it's the smartest advice in the building.
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
The difference maker 💯✨
Leo Messi takes home the #IconOfTheMatch tonight. 🏆 @RoyalCaribbean
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
“Work ethic. You don’t stay at the top without proper work ethic. Doesn’t happen.”
Tell them, Seedorf!
Clarence Seedorf discussing Lionel Messi’s genius, selflessness and underrated work ethic.
Clarence Seedorf:
“If another player is in a better position to score, the pass would go there. That’s the thing I love about Messi, by the way. If he can shoot himself, but there’s another player who’s in a better position, generally he would choose to pass the ball still.
That for me is genius, of course. Because the instinct, you know, is ‘I want to score.’ Scoring is amazing.”
Rio Ferdinand:
“No, it’s true. And again, on that interview with Thierry Henry, who trained and played with Messi, he was saying how underrated his work rate is.
And like you’re talking about, the top players, the best players, or any player, work rate has got to be a fundamental of what you do.”
Clarence Seedorf:
“Work ethic. You don’t stay at the top without proper work ethic. Doesn’t happen.”
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
🚨 Legendary Hollywood star Owen Wilson just called Messi free therapy 🧑⚕️🐐.
“If I’m feeling down, I just go on YouTube and watch Messi’s dribbles and passes… it makes me feel amazing.”
Messi's influence is unreal 🐐🔥
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
💔🇦🇷 El testimonio de Lucas Trejo es durísimo:
“Estuvimos tres días en un edificio entre los escombros, con 40 grados de calor, sin luz. No había bebida, no había comida, todo devastado.
La primera persona que nos ayudó fue Antonela Roccuzzo, nos mandó todo lo que necesitábamos para armar un campamento… para que no nos falte bebida, comida, internet, pudimos hacer una carpa para quedarnos a dormir.
Cuando yo llegué a Córdoba, el hijo de Guillermo Hoyos LLEGÓ CON UNA MALETA QUE ME ENVIÓ LEO MESSI CON ROPA DE ÉL, ZAPATILLAS DE ÉL, todo mientras jugaba el Mundial. Él se hizo presente y quería decirlo públicamente, espero pronto poder ir y darle un abrazo y agradecerle”.
Vía @radiolared.
En junio, los terremotos en Venezuela se llevaron lo que Lucas Trejo más quería: su esposa Yanina y sus hijos, Aarón y Ainhoa.
Meses después contó quiénes estuvieron primero para ayudarlo. Antonela Roccuzzo, con su fundación. Y Lionel Messi, que en pleno Mundial se hizo un tiempo para mandarle UNA VALIJA CON SU PROPIA ROPA Y ZAPATILLAS.
Gestos que lo valen todo.
Mucha fuerza, Lucas. ❤️🇦🇷
Vía @radiolared.
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
“Which Barcelona are we going to have when Messi decides to go home? That’s, for me, the big question. What next? That’s, for me, the big question.”
Jose Mourinho faced Lionel Messi throughout his career, from Chelsea to Inter Milan and Real Madrid. After years of trying to stop him, he had one word to describe him: GENIUS. 🐐
Jose Mourinho:
“What I can analyze is what I see. And what I see is a player who, during his career, went through a process. And that process was always based on, according to his qualities, how he could give the most to the team.
I was very fortunate because I was, let’s say, close throughout his entire career. In fact, the first match he played for Barcelona was a Porto-Barcelona match at the opening of Porto’s new stadium in 2004.
And then I played against him when I was at Chelsea, I played against him when I was at Inter, then I went to Madrid and I was in Madrid for three years, so I played against him many times, when he was coached by different managers, in different positions on the pitch.
And the only thing I can say is that, progressively, he was always better and better and better.
For me, ‘genius’… I think that’s the word you chose, and I think the word is correct. Genius.
Lots of work? I don’t know, I’m not there to see. A fantastic social life? It looks like it, yes. You don’t see, you don’t listen, you don’t read many things about Messi doing wrong in his personal life, in his social life. So it looks like everything together, plus very good teammates.
When he plays between the lines to get that pass from the center-backs, you get it from Piqué. You don’t get it from every center-back in Europe, even in some of the top teams.
When Messi is on the right and comes inside, the sprints that Jordi Alba makes on the left, and he plays a 70-meter pass, you do that because Jordi Alba makes that run 25 times every game.
The space that the striker opens for him, because you have Suárez.
When he plays on the right and comes inside and he doesn’t defend, he needs Rakitić behind him to close the space behind him.
So the team, and the teams he always had at Barcelona, were always good teams, with good players, with good coaching, and he was also supported by a fantastic situation.
But, you know, no more words about this guy. ‘Genius’ is the word for me.
And for me, a question that I asked the other day when I was on another television channel is the question that I’m going to keep for some time:
Which Barcelona are we going to have when Messi decides to go home?
That’s, for me, the big question. What next? That’s, for me, the big question.”
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
With his performance tonight, @fccincinnati's Evander joined Lionel Messi as the only two players in @MLS history to record at least 30 goal contributions in three different seasons.
Xavier Guerrero retweeted
“I cannot foresee, but I can observe the game, see what’s going on, see where we can cause damage or be damaged ourselves. That’s what I try to see as fast as I possibly can.”
Messi sat across from Zane Lowe and broke down how he actually sees the game, and it was the opposite of the mystical version people usually invent for him. He didn’t claim to predict the future or see three moves ahead like some chess grandmaster. He said he just watches what’s unfolding in real time and tries to process it as quickly as possible so he can put himself and his teammates in the right spots. The way he described it was simple, almost understated, which is exactly why it landed the way it did.
He talked about how his role changed over the years. Early on he was out wide, then he drifted inside, and at certain points he had the freedom to move wherever the game needed him. That freedom never meant he was just freelancing. He said his only real objective was always the same: get into the opponent’s half and try to finish, whether that was with a pass or a goal. Everything else was about creating space for himself and for the people around him so those chances actually arrived.
The part that sticks is how he framed the difference between seeing ahead and simply reading what’s already happening. A lot of players talk about vision like it’s some special gift that lets them control the outcome before it occurs. Messi described it as constant observation, scanning for the openings and the dangers as they appear and reacting fast enough to take advantage. That version of it feels more human and, in a way, more impressive. He wasn’t born with a crystal ball. He just learned.
Over two decades of doing this at the highest level, how to process the game faster than almost anyone else ever has. And even now, he still talks about it like he’s just trying to stay one step clear of the chaos instead of claiming he can control it.