Lionel Messi stars in a Chavo del Ocho style commercial after "running out of battery"

El Chavo del Ocho, a Mexican series that marked generations throughout Latin America, especially in Argentina, is not only part of the collective imagination, but also of iconic figures such as Diego Maradona, who always expressed his admiration for the character and its creator, Roberto Gomez Bolanos, "Chespirito". And it is that a particular moment of Lionel Messi in the commercial resembles a situation that El Chavo del Ocho used to suffer.

Messi is no stranger to this universe. In February 2026, Lionel Messi himself showed his connection with El Chavo del Ocho when he participated in a dynamic where he put together an "ideal XI" with characters from the neighborhood. During a chat with Nahuel Guzman, he chose names such as Don Ramon, Quico, Professor Jirafales and even Chapulin Colorado as part of his team, demonstrating not only knowledge of the program, but also closeness to the humor that marked generations. The scene, which quickly went viral, confirmed that Messi's link with the universe of Roberto Gomez Bolanos is not casual, but part of a shared cultural memory.

The moment inevitably travels to the neighborhood

In the commercial, Messi is in a decisive moment, ready to define a play, when suddenly something strange happens: he remains completely motionless. Within the logic of the advertisement, he simply "runs out of batteries", but the scene clearly resembles the style of El Chavo and his famous "garrotera", that state in which the character was rigid, disconnected from the environment, practically motionless, as if he had no energy.

Although the commercial makes no direct allusion to El Chavo del Ocho, the way and posture in which Lionel is "cramped" evokes that classic moment in the neighborhood, when El Chavo was in the same situation, until the solution arrived. And it wasn't batteries, but a good bucket of cold water that "revived" him.

Everything Messi does attracts attention and, sometimes even unintentionally, a commercial can connect with the collective memory. In this case, it inevitably refers to El Chavo del Ocho, a reference deeply rooted in Argentina and throughout Latin America.