Gilbert Arenas has never shown much interest in football – until now. Lionel Messi’s latest World Cup performance seems to have changed that.
The former NBA All-Star posted a video on X showing just how quickly he’d jumped on the Messi bandwagon after Argentina’s World Cup opener.
Messi scored a hat-trick to lead Argentina to victory over Algeria – and Arenas was clearly impressed.
Gilbert Arenas becomes a Messi fan after Argentina’s World Cup opener
The video uploaded to X starts with Gilbert Arenas’ wife, Melli Monaco, poking fun at his sudden interest in football.
She filmed him wearing an Argentina shirt with Messi’s name on the back, despite never showing any real interest in the sport before.
Monaco looked genuinely surprised as she asked him how he’d become a fan so quickly. Arenas didn’t hesitate with his answer.
“Why do you have a Messi jersey?” she asked.
Arenas responded, “Hat-trick! Greatness. I know greatness!”
How Melli Monaco helped Gilbert Arenas understand Messi’s achievement
The conversation didn’t stop there. Monaco explained that she’d had to teach Arenas what a hat-trick was after he became interested in Messi’s performance against Algeria.
She put it into basketball terms to help him understand. That comparison hit home for Arenas. He admitted he’d even looked it up just to make sure she was right before fully buying into the Messi hype.
Monaco: “I had to explain what a hat-trick was. It’s like Kobe scoring 81.”
Arenas: “I had to Google it just to make sure you weren’t talking reckless. MESSI!”
For a player who shared the court with some of basketball’s biggest names, that’s high praise.
Messi’s hat-trick didn’t just turn Arenas into a fan – and judging by the Argentina shirt, he might not be the last American sports star to get swept up in the excitement this summer.
Read more:
