Ivan Rakitic reveals Lionel Messi’s novel way to avoid noisy neighbours
Lionel Messi’s tax problem is well documented, but his Croatian team-mate Ivan Rakitic has unearthed a strange piece of insight into the Argentine's private life.
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The global megastar that is Messi had a noisy neighbour issue recently, and according to his Barcelona team-mate Rakitic, the Argentine’s way of dealing with them was to simply buy their house and get the owners to move out.
“When he bought his house in Castelldefels his neighbours were a little noisy, so Leo had to buy their house so that he could be alone. Luckily I have never had those problems,” Rakitic said in an interview with Croatian newspaper Novi List.
Rakitic also claims the whole Barcelona team love to play the board game Ludo during away trips, immersing themselves in marathon sessions.
He said: “We recently travelled to Qatar for six hours by plane and for the whole six hours we did not stop playing [ludo]. The other day I dreamed of figures, colours, boxes, cubes, fives and sixes.
“Few people know that we play it among ourselves when travelling, and most people say that footballers usually gamble or play poker.
“Since I arrived at Barcelona, it's the only game the team plays all day. Here, we played all the way to Madrid, back and forth, and again the next day after the game against Atletico.”
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