Leo Messi: Breaking Records On And Off The Pitch.

The culmination of a lifetime dream after years of World Cup heartbreak and years of blood, sweat, and tears is captured in a brief instance as his eyes glisten and a wide smile maps across his face. Lionel Messi is lifting the fabled World Cup trophy above his head, and on the shoulder of his best friend and fellow legend, Sergio "Kun" Aguero.

The now iconic picture was captured by Getty photographer Shaun Botterill, who was in the stands for one of the most important moments in sporting history, and was one that Leo Messi decided to post on his social media to celebrate his World Cup victory over France. This picture is currently the most liked post in the history of Instagram, surpassing a simple egg.

According to Botterill, the photographers at Sunday's World Cup final planned for one of them to go stand on the field in front of the billboards by the main stand, which hosted the great majority of the Argentina fans in the Lusail Stadium, where there were advertising hoardings.

After the Argentinean captain was presented with the big gold trophy , Messi spent some quality time with his family who have supported him to this momentous occasion before he made his way over towards the supporters. This prompted all the photographers to rush to the goal at that end of the field.

According to Botterill, "I almost got trapped, but just got trapped in the correct position." "If most of us [photographers] are being completely honest, you always need a little bit of luck, and I had a little bit of luck on Sunday night. Aguero, a close friend and teammate of Messi's who retired from football in December 2021 due to cardiac arrhythmia, carried his friend to the other side of the stadium. At that moment, Botterill seized a cable from a remote camera behind the goal, plugged it into his camera, and sent the picture to his editors.

By coincidence, Botterill's son was that evening working the editing station.

In a message, my oldest son told me, "I've modified your image dad, it's a really great picture," recalls Botterill.

The disapproval from his son has turned out to be rather underemphasized.

Botterill "knew it was a really decent image" right away; modesty runs in the family. However, there is always a chance that another photographer at a slightly different angle would have taken a better picture because "little margins" may often make a significant difference.

The broader picture, which provided more context and more accurately captured the adoration the Argentina captain was receiving, was the photographer's preferred version of the image, the British photographer reveals. Messi shared the cropped version of the image on Instagram.