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          30-foot Messi vs 40-foot Neymar: Kerala divided as FIFA World Cup draws close

          Neymar and Lionel Messi have been the subjects of larger than life installations in the Indian state of Kerala Getty Images
          • ESPN staffNov 4, 2022, 01:31 PM

          Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr. may be the best of mates, and indeed teammates at PSG, but now is not the time for them to be celebrated together. You see the World Cup is almost here, and that can mean only one thing -- either you are with Messi, or with Neymar.

          Football fans in the southern Indian state of Kerala have started preparations for the quadrennial event early. In the tiny village of Pullavoor (Kozhikode district), Argentina fans caused a social media storm by putting up a 30-foot-tall cut-out of Messi right in the middle of the Kurungattu Kadavu district. And they did it after a procession along the road:

          But as Newton so famously postulated, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and so obviously this wasn't the end of it. Kerala (as is the case with many 'neutral' places around the world) is divided almost equally during World Cup time. If one part's all Argentina, the other becomes clad in the yellow of Brazil.

          And so the Brazil fans of Pullavoor decided they needed to answer all this Messi-love with a display of affection for their own #10. And so now, right next to the 30-foot-tall Messi stands a 40-foot-tall cut-out of Neymar.

          Newton obviously had never met any [Malayalee] football fans - there's no such thing as an equal reaction to football banter.

          Oh, and of course, the Neymar supporters had a procession of their own too:

          But because this is an ongoing battle of one-upmanship, there will continue to be larger-than-life displays of support across the state as the World Cup draws closer. In fact, in Muvattupuzha's (Ernakulam district) Nirmala College, students created an image of Messi's face - with 1,18,000 odd post-its:

          With the World Cup kicking off in Qatar on November 20, expect a whole lot more to come out from across the world.