【Maninilip (2025)】

One post features Lionel Messi posing with fans. Another shows him seated at a table with a soccer ball in the foreground,Maninilip (2025) presumably discussing the game he loves. In another photo, we see Messi dribbling down a street, looking focused in his blue and white Argentina jersey.

Except that's not Messi in the photos at all -- it just looks exactly like him. And the Instagram feed doesn't belong to the soccer star -- it belongs to a 25-year-old Iranian man named Reza Parastesh, whose striking resemblance to the sporting icon recently landed him in hot water with police.

We'll get to how Paratesh found himself in trouble with police soon -- but first, look at these Instagram photos. The beard, the haircut, the posture -- his resemblance to Messi is uncanny!

View this post on Instagram

View this post on Instagram

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Looking like Messi looks like fun, right? It turns out that's not always the case.

The AFPreports that soccer fans clamoring for selfies with the Messi lookalike caused such a disruption in the city of Hamedan this week that Paratesh was taken to a police station and his car was impounded while authorities tried to quell the madness.

Paratesh told the AFPthat he started playing up his Messi resemblance -- by growing out his beard and getting his haircut in the style of the FC Barcelona star -- a few months ago, after instigation from his father.

"Now people really see me as the Iranian Messi and want me to mimic everything he does. When I show up somewhere, people are really shocked," he said. "I'm really happy that seeing me makes them happy and this happiness gives me a lot of energy."

Paratesh says he's working to mimic some of Messi's moves. He even has a business proposition for the international icon.

"Being the best player in footballing history, he definitely has more work than he can handle," Paratesh told the AFP. "I could be his representative when he is too busy."

Interesting idea. We'll see if Messi takes him up on it -- or perhaps Messi willtake him up on it, but the rest of us will never even notice.