Brazil President: Leo Messi is the Best Player in the World

September 6th, 2008 | by: Daryl | View Comments

There are certain things you shouldn’t do if you’re president of Brazil. Like comparing Brazil’s footballers unfavorably with Argentina’s for example. That’s a no-no. But apparently that’s exactly what President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva did yesterday:

“When I see Messi – who is the best player in the world in my opinion – lose the ball, he runs off until he gets it back or commits a foul. Our guys lose the ball and fold their arms,” Lula was quoted as saying by Brazilian daily Folha de Sao Paulo in their online edition.

Reaction has been.. strong. Here’s Brazil keeper Julio Cesar’s response:

“I voted for him and I was very upset, mainly because he gave Messi as an example,” he said.
“He should go and live in Argentina, become an Argentine citizen, resign as president and maybe Brazil will improve in some way or another.”

Dunga was a bit more diplomatic.

“Every leader behaves differently,” he told reporters. “We have great admiration for the president, and the great leader that he is, but logically, at a moment like this, we would have liked his support.”

And Dunga has good cause to be diplomatic, because seems the President has done him a favour. Before these comments, all the talk was about Dunga’s job being on the line should his team – currently in fifth place in the CONMEBOL qualifying group – struggle against Chile.

Deliberately or not – now the President is taking some of that heat, and taking a little of the pressure off Dunga. A headline about Lula’s faux pas is one less headline about Dunga losing his job. Unless Brazil lose to Chile tomorrow, in which case all the headlines will be about Dunga losing his job.