Lionel Messi pledges to go on a religious pilgrimage if Argentina win 2018 World Cup

If all goes as planned for Lionel Messi at next summer’s World Cup, he will have run about 80 kilometres in seven games, the number the top four teams play in the quadrennial tournament. If he and his Argentina squad can manage a win in that final game, Messi said he would tack on an extra 50 kilometres in the form of a religious pilgrimage to celebrate.

“I will go on foot to San Nicolas,” Messi said, shaking hands with the host, after training in Moscow where Argentina will play a friendly against Russia on Saturday.

San Nicolas, an important centre of Argentine Catholicism, is a popular pilgrimage site that invites hundreds of thousands of believers to travel on foot to worship at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolas each September.

For Messi to get there from his house outside Rosario, he would need to cover roughly 50km of terrain. That doesn’t sound that bad. What will probably prove more difficult is getting time off from his club team Barcelona to make the September 25 trek.

If Argentina win and Messi follows through on his promise, he will be joined by teammate Sergio Aguero of Manchester City, who upped the ante. He said that not only would the pair make a pilgrimage to San Nicolas, but they would run the distance.