Messi launch affirms Spanish as football's new lingua franca

Argentinian stole limelight again at a tournament where South America is saying 'no mas' to European hegemony

- Barney Ronay

Javier Zanetti looked suitably awed as he read aloud from the label of a Limon Lime Mas by Messi drink, up on stage at the Chase Stadium VIP reception suite, dressed in silky black tailoring, and looking like a hired assassin on his way to the opera, albeit one whose speciality is downing his victims in an ice bucket of the Future Of Hydration.

To be fair, Zanetti didn't have many options when it came to striking a tone. A few moments earlier he'd been introduced by a marketing manager who spoke about Lionel Messi's new energy drink in tones of high-performance evangelism, gazing with doe-eyed wonder at the small plastic bottle in his hand and predicting that the "official hydration partner of the Argentine FA" (water: you're out) would go on not just to make you less thirsty or become a popular choice in petrol stations, but to "inspire generations".

Here was a guy who has really drunk the Mas. And why not? The Mas by Messi launch was an intoxicating event. Beautiful fragrant people drifted about enjoying the Mas vibes, the Mas buzz, the bottomless Mas shots at the bar. Reporters and TV crews, the Mas Media, lurked at the fringes. Even the World Cup was here, lending its gravity from behind its bulletproof plinth.

Mas does seem a fitting edition to the energy drink pantheon, in that it also tastes like someone has washed a packet of Skittles with sea water and collected it in a plastic skip. But perhaps the most striking thing is that it has an excellent name.