A 25-foot cut-out of Argentine football legend Lionel Messi at Chellanam
| Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT
Have you seen the viral photograph of the 25-foot cutout of Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi put up by fans at Chellanam, in Kochi? Placing a cutout of Messi is now something of a FIFA World Cup tradition at Chellanam. “Every season (World Cup) Messi cutouts come up without fail and these are built from scratch by local fans,” says Thomas Mayjo, an All Indian Football Federation certified coach and Chellanam native.
Although football fans across Kerala have been putting up cutouts of their favourite players, this one at Chellanam has garnered the most attention.
Way back in 2018, a 35-foot high cutout of the Argentinian star by another Chellanam-based club, Argentina Fans Chellanam got a football autographed by their hero. This video was uploaded on Messi’s website, which caught his team’s attention and the rest is the stuff of dreams.
This year the cutout is a modest 25 feet high, and has been put up by the young members of the City Bazaar Football Club. “The boys put in a lot of effort to get this cutout ‘up’. From ideation to execution it was the work of almost a month,” says Mayjo, who was also the goalkeeper of the Indian team at the 2019 Homeless World Cup and an employee of Project Venda, by the Fourth Wave Foundation. Usually by the time the World Cup kicks off there would be cutouts in place, however this year, initially, there wasn’t much happening vis-a vis putting up these. That is when the youngsters put their heads together and decided that they would do it.
“They raised funds via donations and crowdfunding, working together as a team to put the cutout together. These boys are essentially the next generation to put it up. Every four years, there is a new group of kids — it is almost like a rite of passage!” says Mayjo. It was not all youngsters, even the older folks contributed in raising the cutout.
“The boys did all the welding and the other work securing the cutout onto the metal frame. They had help with figuring out how to attach it to the frame and securing it so that it stays put, and also cutting the flex in this shape,” he adds. The final act of placing was the work of three days.
He says there is another story to how the cutout was put together. “The boys worked on it, putting it together in a compound on which once stood the house of one of the boys. The sea had taken away their house!” For context, a little background on Chellanam, which is a coastal village near Kochi, is prone to flooding (during high tide also) and sea erosion.
This year’s tournament is extra special and bitter-sweet because this might be the last time Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) and Neymar Junior (Brazil) would play for a World Cup. “These three footballers have been looked up to by a couple of generations, the next time will not be the same. There will be other names, but it will not be the same.”
Although the majority are Argentina fans here, there are supporters of other countries like Brazil. Like Mayjo, who says he loves the sport and ‘supports’ Brazil. He has an explanation for why Neymar, “He is an inspiration to young people for the way he has made a comeback after every setback and he is going to play this year. It is a lesson for young people on how to persevere and not give up. And for that reason he deserves a special place.”
Published – June 12, 2026 01:13 pm IST
