How Messi’s name saved grandmother in Israel

A 90-year-old grandmother, who lives in southern Israel near the Gaza border, credited Messi for saving her during October 07 attack.

Esther Cunio was in Israel, when the war broke out. She recalled the horrifying encounter when two Palestinian gunmen had invaded her home.

Her whole war experience was released in a documentary titled “Voces Del 7 De Octubre – Latino Stories of Survival.”

The two armed men demanded to know about where her family was, she told them she couldn’t speak Arabic, and poorly speak Hebrew. She only knows Argentine Spanish.

Cunio, who was born in Argentina, said that one them asked “what is Argentina?”

And without hesitation, she referred to global football star Lionel Messi in broken Hebrew.

“So I tell him, ‘Do you watch soccer?’ Then he says to me, ‘Yes, yes, I like soccer’. So I say to him, ‘I’m from where Messi is from’. Then he replies, ‘Messi! I like Messi’.”

The armed men soon put their weapons away and one of them even took a picture with her.

“He put his hand like this,” Cunio said, extending two fingers. “And they took the picture of us, and, well, then they left.”

 

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