Canelo Alvarez has put his feud with Lionel Messi to bed following Argentina's World Cup final win.
Argentina became world champions for the first time since 1986 on Sunday afternoon when they beat France on penalties in one of the greatest-ever World Cup finals. Messi put his side ahead early on and Argentina were two goals to the good at half-time, but a late fight back from France saw the game stretch into extra-time. It was still all square after 120 minutes, but missed penalties from Kingsley Coman and Aurelian Tchouameni saw Argentina's Gonzalo Montiel deliver the game-winning spot kick.
Alvarez, who traded words with Messi during the group stage of the competition, reacted to Argentina's win by tweeting: "Congratulations Argentina, they deserved it." The undisputed super-middleweight champion criticised Messi after a video appeared to show the Argentine forward kick a Mexico shirt following their group stage match, which Argentina won 2-0.
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Alvarez went on to tweet: “Did you guys see Messi cleaning the floor with our jersey and flag. He better pray to God that I don’t find him. Just as I respect Argentina, you have to respect Mexico! I’m not talking about the country, I’m talking about Messi because of the bulls*** he did.
"Since the Mexico shirt is on the ground, it’s already an insult. Stop bulls***ing about what was or wasn’t." Several players such as Sergio Aguero and Cesc Fabregas tried to explain to Alvarez that he didn't understand the dressing room culture in football, insisting Messi was not disrespecting his home country. It was later revealed that Alvarez was duped by a fake picture showing a Mexico shirt being used as a brush.
Alvarez later apologised for his outburst by writing: "These last few days I got carried away by the passion and love I feel for my country and made comments that were out of place for which I want to apologise to Messi and the people of Argentina. Every day we learn something new and this time it was my turn."
Just days after his outburst, Mexico was eliminated from the competition on goal difference despite winning their final group stage game as Poland progressed to the round of 16. Alvarez, who was brought up in the small town of Juanacatlan, insisted he would continue to support Mexico "until the end" following their exit from the tournament.
Alvarez was last in action against Gennady Golovkin in September, putting an end to their rivalry by picking up his second win against the Kazakh in their trilogy fight. The 32-year-old moved up to light-heavyweight in May by challenging for Dmitry Bivol's world title, but it didn't go to plan as Alvarez suffered his first defeat in almost a decade.
