His name is Messias- Junior Messias that is. He is 30 years old and of Brazilian descent.
The improbable story of an attacking midfielder who had only played a total of 51 minutes and featuring only twice for Milan in all, before his heroics last Wednesday— coming off the bench, as usual, with 25mins of the match left and scored the winner(and only goal of the match) for Milan with only 3mins left of the match against a strong side in Atletico Madrid, keeping Milan's hitherto fading Champions league hopes well alive. By the way that was his debut in the Champions league and man signed on loan for Milan in the wee hours of the transfer window, in August from a Crotone team that had suffered relegation from the Serie A, last season. Indeed he was brought in by Milan as a squad player since they couldn't land their preferred targets in the attacking midfield area.
Just yesterday, this Junior Messias did it again as he scored a brace for AC Milan in his first start, as they thrashed Andriy Shevchenko's Genoa 3-0 and landing them in second spot behind Napoli and overtaking city rivals Inter Milan.
Milan had suffered two consecutive losses to Fiorentina and Sassuolo prior to this match so they came eager for a change of fortunes.
Things looked bleak for Milan in the beginning when key defender Simon Kjaer was forced off due to injury, but soon things brightened up as the seemingly ageless superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic curled a 10th-minute free-kick around the wall for Milan's first goal and his sixth league goal of the season.
Then it was Messias time: first he pounced on a deflected shot to send a looping header beyond the Genoa goalkeeper in the first half.
In the second half, Genoa pushed and were denied a goal by a spectacular Mike Maignan springing save,denying a Caleb Ekuban header. Then Messias finished things up as Brahim Diaz teed him up and he tucked the ball neatly into the bottom corner,making it 3 nil to Milan, giving them such a refreshing victory.
Junior Messias continues a remarkable career trajectory that has gone from delivering fridges, toasters with a truck and polishing bricks recovered at demolition sites for 20 cents a pop to now becoming a player in star team like Milan. Messias moved to Italy from Brazil his homeland in 2011 to earn a living and it was in Italy he did the above named jobs, then he was encouraged by fellow immigrants to begin amateur football as a side hustle. It is from there he slowly climbed up the Italian football ladder: from the fifth tier (Casale) to the fourth tier (Chieri) to the third tier(Gozzano) to the second and first tier (Crotone) to the first tier and Champions League team AC Milan, whom he joined in the summer.
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