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We’ve seen Lionel Messi, the Argentina-born professional footballer, play absolutely perfect games on the pitch – but is he pitch-perfect? In a musical sense, he just might be, as there’s a video of him doing an on-the-spot cover of the UEFA Champions League theme on the piano.

Lionel Messi can play the piano if the social media video of him doing so is to be believed, but reports say the pianist was actually Tomas Fosch. Fosch bears a resemblance to Messi, making him a good candidate for being his double.

If you had any hopes that Messi actually played the piano after seeing the video of him doing so, then you might find yourself a little disappointed by the potential truth that the actual pianist revealed.

No shame in being fooled, however, as they look so similar they could almost be twins.

A Viral Goal

If you had to guess what other skill sets Messi had, being a pianist with a professional-level of ability is likely far from the top of the list. It just simply isn’t something that you could guess, since having talent with a musical instrument has almost no overlap with his actual profession.

Regardless of what does or doesn’t sound within the realms of possibility, we’ve got evidence. The video of him effortlessly recreating the UEFA theme, seemingly completely ad-libbed, is there as clear as day for everyone to see.

Originally posted as part of a social media campaign for Adidas back in 2017, featuring the #HereToCreate hashtag, Messi doesn’t only “play the piano”. He plays it like he’s been practicing for his entire life.

As his fingers dance across the keys, it’s as if by magic that he turns the already stunning UEFA theme into his own reinterpreted version. It’s almost too good to be true, and taking a quick peruse through some of the comments on the various uploads of Messi’s piano skills reveals an audience who are split down the middle with what to believe.

It turns out that some of the doubters might have been right to be skeptical, as a little bit of evidence to suggest it was all smoke-and-mirrors surfaced just a day or two after the video’s release.

Red Card

It seems like we’re going to have to give Adidas and the social media account managers a red card for this one. According to an interview just one day after the original video was released, it was in fact a double who was playing the piano.

That might seem almost as hard to believe as Messi playing the piano, especially if you inspect the video a little closer. After all, we can clearly see that he has the same tattoo, on the same arm, and he’s the spitting image of the footballer.

According to the real pianist, the resemblance was the product of some tricky editing techniques with a little bit of illusion sprinkled in. Tomas Fosch was the name of the pianist, and he revealed all to ESPN.

According to Fosch, he wasn’t even aware of the kind of video that he was going to be featuring in, just that whoever was in charge of the ad agency requested his piano skills. Imagine your own surprise if you turned up to that job, only to find out you were going to be the body double for one of the best football players of all time.

Pitch Twins

So, it might not be Messi playing the piano, but he and Fosch could have been twins; they looked so similar on the video. Both masters of very different kinds of pitches.

Taking a quick look and listening to Fosch playing the piano, it’s pretty evident by his movements and his looks that not only was he the perfect choice for the part, but also has the same playing style as the man in the Adidas campaign video.

According to Fosch, Messi was featured at the beginning of the video where he was sitting at the piano keys. When the shot transitions to a side view, though, it’s all Fosch.

To add in a little extra trickery, they dressed him up in Messi’s clothes and shaved his arm to give him a fake replica of Messi’s tattoo. Very sneaky!

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