Jonás Gutiérrez shares unseen footage of Messi juggling the ball at the 2010 World Cup camp

Some videos age like fine wine, and this is one of them. Jonás Gutiérrez decided to dig through his archive and release footage he had kept tucked away for more than a decade: Lionel Messi, sitting in a hotel room during a national team camp, controlling the ball as if it were an extension of his own body.

The scene took place during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the second of the six World Cups Messi played for the Argentina national team. El Galgo was rooming with Martín Demichelis, but that night they got two unexpected visitors: Maxi Rodríguez and Messi himself, who ended up putting together an impromptu juggling contest with the Jabulani, the controversial ball used at that World Cup.

Maxi broke the ice first, showing off in front of his teammates amid laughter and jokes that didn't take away from his skill. But everything changed once the ball landed at the feet, or rather the bare feet, of Messi. "Great stuff, Fiera, but now it's Leo's turn," Gutiérrez told Rodríguez, needling him a bit and setting up what would become an almost hypnotic sequence.

Rodríguez tried to get ahead of any excuses in case the Rosario native outdid him, pointing out that he was playing without sneakers. Messi's response came right back:

"I told you, you could've gone barefoot too, you idiot"Lionel Messi

With Los Nocheros playing in the background, Messi sat there taming the ball without ever letting it drop, leaving his teammates in disbelief. "You're more comfortable in the chair," "my battery's about to die" and "both names should be in the title" were some of the comments heard amid laughter in the video.

A strange World Cup for Messi, but a perfect year

It's worth remembering that South Africa 2010 was, oddly enough, the only one of the six World Cups Messi played in which he failed to score a single goal. With Diego Maradona as head coach, Argentina won all three of its group stage matches (1-0 over Nigeria, 4-1 over South Korea and 2-0 over Greece) and beat Mexico in the round of 16 by a score of 3-1, but ran into a Germany side in the quarterfinals that routed them 4-0, ending the dream.

Despite that painful elimination, Messi closed out the year in spectacular individual form, claiming his second consecutive Ballon d'Or, finishing ahead of his rivals from that World Cup, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández, who had actually lifted the trophy with Spain.

Gutiérrez shared the video on social media with a nostalgic message:

"A video I had never shared before. The room with Martín Demichelis, and then Maxi Rodríguez walks in and starts doing incredible tricks, and then Leo Messi takes over and turns the moment into something sublime, impossible to stop watching this video"Jonás Gutiérrez

And he didn't forget to explain why he doesn't appear juggling in the footage himself:

"I want everyone to know I was the one filming, and I didn't want Leo to feel outdone if I started doing my own tricks with the Jabulani"Jonás Gutiérrez

With Messi's retirement from the national team still fresh in fans' minds, footage like this becomes a small treasure, a chance to relive the magic of a player who, even behind closed doors at a team camp, was already showing why he would go down as one of the greatest of all time.