Oviedo gave Lionel Messi a school-day welcome before one of Spain’s most prestigious sporting honours, turning the city’s Palacio de los Deportes into a lesson in football’s capacity to educate, include and bring young people together.
The Argentine forward met Asturias’s academic and student community on the eve of receiving the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports. Around 4,500 people filled the arena for an hour-long event centred on the values that can sit alongside competition, with Messi serving as the central inspiration for hundreds of local pupils.
A game designed by pupils
More than 750 boys and girls from 54 schools took part in an initiative intended to imagine a fairer and more inclusive version of football. The students named their project “The Game of 10”, using Messi’s familiar shirt number as a starting point for discussions about how the sport can be reshaped through participation and respect.
The programme put the children at the heart of proceedings rather than treating them as spectators. Their work explored football as a social and educational tool, while Messi’s career offered a reference point for the exercise.
Demand for places had reflected the scale of anticipation around the visit: organisers received more than 20,000 applications to attend.
Cazorla reunion and Barcelona memories
Santi Cazorla joined Messi in Oviedo, providing a meeting between the Argentine and the Real Oviedo figure who won both the World Cup and European Championship with Spain. Messi thanked Cazorla for his contribution to the occasion.
The stands carried reminders of the two teams most closely associated with Messi’s public journey. Argentina shirts were widespread, as were Barcelona colours, while footage of his goals and major moments for the Catalan club was shown inside the arena.
Messi remained close to the crowd throughout the session, greeting those present as the youngest attendees supplied much of the afternoon’s excitement. Before collecting the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports, the visit left Oviedo with a football occasion shaped less by a match result than by the game’s wider reach.
