Lionel Messi made use of some rare free time this week to take his family on a surprise trip to Disneyland.
The Argentine superstar was rested for Barcelona’s 1-0 Catalunya Super Cup defeat to Espanyol on Wednesday, so crossed the border from Spain to France to visit the Paris theme park.
The trip was captured in a selfie by Messi’s partner, Antonella Roccuzzo, who posted the picture of her, Lionel and their two children, Thiago and Mateo to Instagram.
The day out seemed to have surprised Ms Roccuzzo as much as her followers, as the photo was captioned: ‘We love @leomessi Disneyland. Thank you for this beautiful surprise!!!’
It is a rare public photo of the family of four together, after Messi’s youngest son Mateo was born in September last year.
While his family were enjoying his presence, Messi’s teammates were certainly missing him as they lost by a single goal to their city rivals.
Messi, who scored a Champions League hat-trick against Manchester City, took a family break
Former Manchester City forward Felipe Caicedo’s strike was enough to separate the sides in Tarragona as Barca boss Luis Enrique made plenty of changes to the usual starting eleven, with Neymar and Luis Suarez also rested.
Messi has been in excellent form since his recent return from injury, including scoring a hat-trick in Barcelona’s 4-0 Champions League thrashing of Manchester City.
He missed three weeks at the end of September and the start of October with a groin injury, but has netted six times in three games since.
Barcelona are currently third in La Liga with 19 points from nine games.
