Messi Still Has The Worst Instagram Strategy

Part two of my investigation.

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I can’t believe the World Cup is almost over.

On Sunday, Spain will play Argentina (in front of Donald Trump, apparently) at MetLife and you really couldn’t write this ending if you tried.

I’m manifesting a last-minute ticket to the match (and to the Noah Kahan concert this weekend at Citi Field), so if anyone has any leads on either, reach out to me.

I will give you some good sports gossip in return! 🫶🏼

Anyways!

From Spain star Lamine Yamal being bathed by Argentina star Lionel Messi as a baby (yes, that photo is real) to this likely being Messi’s final World Cup, you couldn’t script this matchup.

UNICEF@UNICEF

Yes, those photos you’ve seen are real. More than 18 years ago, a baby named Lamine Yamal and his mom Sheila met Lionel Messi at a UNICEF fundraising photoshoot. Today, their achievements on the pitch inspire millions. Off the pitch, both Messi and Lamine Yamal use their voices

6:08 PM · Jul 16, 2026 · 15.1M Views

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1.65K Replies · 45.8K Reposts · 245K Likes

I’ve been thinking a lot about Messi and his overall brand leading up to and during this World Cup.

Last year, I wrote a piece about how he is the best soccer player in the world, but has the worst Instagram strategy.

For part of my master’s thesis at Oxford, I analyzed every in-feed post Messi shared over a year and found that nearly half were paid partnerships. Many of them were blurry. Sometimes multiple posts in a row!

The Best Soccer Player Has The Worst Instagram Strategy

While I may be a Sports Gossip Expert, I am still a sociologist and former social media manager for public figures at heart and have been keeping tabs on Messi’s Instagram strategy.

What I found was…curious.

In the month leading up to the World Cup, nearly 70% of his in-feed posts were paid partnerships. That’s 16 of 23 in-feed posts and, once again, many were published back to back.

These partnerships included ones that make sense, like Adidas, and others that were….odd, like a paid partnership with his own fragrance line, Messi Fragrances.

Of course, I looked into the fragrance line.

Messi currently has five fragrance lines, ranging from $9.99 for an AXE body spray dupe to $95 for a Dior Sauvage dupe.

The website’s copy looks like it is almost entirely written by AI. My favorite word salad paragraph is this one:

Wearing the Leo Messi Fragrance is more than an experience; it’s an invitation to discover and celebrate the greatness within yourself. It’s a reminder that, like Messi, you have layers of strength, depth, and authenticity that define who you are. Let this scent be your silent yet powerful statement to the world—a testament to the extraordinary qualities that lie beneath your daily exterior.

I ran some of the copy through an AI detector and…well the results speak for themselves: