In the total chaos at the "Maracana", with the ultras and the police clashing in the stands, Leo Messi's voice rang out very loudly: "Everyone off the field"...
It was the "old" captain of Argentina who took the initiative to return his national team to the dressing room, thus delaying the start of the match by half an hour (then won 1-0 by the "Albiceleste").
Riots in the stands began as the national anthems were being played and in a sector occupied by the 3000 Argentine ultras in attendance, most of them mixed with the home crowd, where fights broke out with Brazilian fans.
The intervention of the police to stop the chaos actually worsened it, as often happens in these cases, only to succeed in restoring calm inside the stadium. The episode recalled the clashes in Copacabana during the Libertadores final between Boca Juniors and Fluminense.
Due to the situation, the Argentine players left the field and headed towards the place where the incident was taking place, while some Argentine spectators rushed to the field in search of protection from the pressure of the agents. At that moment, the captain of the "Albiceleste" national team, Lionel Messi, turned to the referee, the Chilean Piero Maza, and with gestures announced that he would remove the team from the field and with his teammates headed to the dressing room to wait until the situation was neutralized.
Lionel Messi's gesture was of great importance and was commented by himself after the match in this way: "They hit people with sticks, they used violence by beating people, a reference to the Brazilian police. There were players who had families there. You think about your family, you don't really know what's going on and you're more focused on that than playing. There was a risk of carnage."