Messi’s unseen ritual breaker: A story from the 2015 final

November 19, 2025 Oliver Obel

In a 2017 interview with TyC Sports, Messi said he typically waits for others to approach him. He mentioned just one exception:

“I don't ask for shirts, I usually swap them, but I asked Zinedine Zidane once,” he said, adding that he normally trades jerseys only with compatriots.

That account appears to be complicated by Buffon’s recollection of the 2015 Champions League final in Berlin. Speaking with Corriere, the former Juventus captain said Messi approached him first as the players headed into the dressing rooms.

“Champions League final in 2015. Halftime. I felt a hand on my back: ‘Gigi, shall we swap shirts now?’ It was Messi. The true great never put on airs,” Buffon said.

The moment surprised him, he added, because it came at a tense point of the match.

A Barcelona move that nearly happened

Buffon also revealed that he once had the option to join Barcelona as a backup goalkeeper — a move he considered partly because he had already spent years facing Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

But during a drive through northern Italy, he said, something pulled him in a different direction. As a Jovanotti song he hadn’t heard in a decade came on the radio, he noticed he was approaching the Parma exit. “A sign,” he recalled, describing why he chose to return to the club where his career began.

The enduring pull of a Messi jersey

Reflecting on his career, Buffon named Messi, Ronaldo and Andrés Iniesta as the finest players he encountered. He also argued that Neymar had enough natural ability to win “five Ballon d’Ors” — a point he said still astonishes him when he looks back at their meetings.

Stories involving Messi’s shirts have surfaced before. Bayern Munich full-back Alphonso Davies told BT Sport in 2020 that he unsuccessfully tried to swap jerseys after Barcelona’s 8–2 defeat in the Champions League, saying Messi seemed “a little bit upset” after the loss.

It took more than 900 days, but Davies finally got the memento. After Bayern’s 1–0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in 2023, he walked off at the Parc des Princes holding Messi’s shirt — a quiet payoff to a long-running pursuit.

Moments like these, shared years later by players on both sides of major rivalries, continue to illuminate the small gestures that shape Messi’s reputation as both a competitor and a colleague.

Sources: TyC Sports, Corriere, BT Sport.