Julián Álvarez points to the sky like Messi after his first goal of the season

Julián Álvarez scored his first goal of the season against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu and looked straight up to the sky in Lionel Messi’s signature celebration.

MC (@CrewsMat10) shared the clip on X with the words, “Julián Álvarez hits the Messi celebration after scoring his first goal of the season. Just look at how happy he is. my boy is finally smiling! 🤩❤️”

In an Infobae interview Álvarez explained the sky-point was no copy for its own sake. It went to his late grandmother, whom he called a very important person. He had even chosen 19 January, her birthday, as the day he arrived at Manchester City. “We spent a lot of time at her house, she was a very important person,” he said.

Before an earlier Bayer Leverkusen match his mother had messaged him to dedicate any goal to the sky. “It seems you have a magic ball,” Álvarez joked afterward. Ahead of the Real Madrid game she sent another note about the maternal grandfather he never met: “My mum wrote to me before the game and said, ‘If you score, you didn’t meet your grandfather, but he would have loved you more than his own life.’”

That is why he pointed upward after the Bernabéu goal, the same simple gesture Messi has long used, now carrying both of Álvarez’s grandparents with it.