Sports
16:47, 16-Dec-2017
Refugee dream comes true with Barça heroes meeting
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Syrian teenager Nujeen Mustafa, a refugee who traveled over 5000 km in her wheelchair from her hometown of Aleppo to Europe in 2015, has had one of her dreams come true: A meeting with her footballing heroes at Barcelona.
The club decided to surprise her by sending Manu, the Barça bus driver, to pick her up in Cologne and drive her back to the Catalan capital where club stars Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta, among others, were waiting to welcome her at the Nou Camp.
Photo of Lionel Messi. /VCG Photo
Photo of Lionel Messi. /VCG Photo
As she said, "Messi has a kind of a baby face, so he always looks quite young even though he's like 30. So I was like 'yeah, you've grown up now'. Because I've known Messi since like 2007, at that time he still looked like a baby, so I was like, 'you've changed now, you look like an adult'. So that was really nice to meet him. He's a really shy guy that has not changed."
Nujeen was born with cerebral palsy, the 18-year-old Syrian speaks 4 languages: Arabic, French, English and German, languages learned by herself thanks to her love of reading and watching television.