Javier Zanetti looked suitably awed as he read aloud from the label of a Limon Lime Mas by Messi drink, up on stage at the Chase Stadium VIP reception suite, dressed entirely in silky black tailoring, and looking like an elite hired assassin on his way to the opera, albeit one whose speciality is downing his victims in an ice bucket of the Future Of Hydration.
To be fair, Zanetti didn’t have many options when it came to striking a tone. A few moments earlier he’d been introduced by a marketing manager who spoke about Lionel Messi’s new energy drink in tones of high-performance evangelism, gazing with doe-eyed wonder at the small plastic bottle in his hand and predicting that the “official hydration partner of the Argentine FA” (water: you’re out) would go on not just to make you less thirsty or become a popular choice in petrol stations, but to “inspire generations”. Here was a guy who has really drunk the Mas.
