Watch Paparazzi

Footballer Lionel Messi spotted wearing Jacob & Co

Spotted at the Marca Golden Shoe Award ceremony, Lionel Messi arrived in a dark suit and a quietly confident Jacob & Co Epic SF24 Grand Complication on his wrist — a watch whose sheer mechanical theatre arguably matches the occasion. The event marked the Argentine forward's fifth European Golden Shoe, a record at the time, and Messi chose to celebrate with one of the most technically dense timepieces in contemporary independent watchmaking.

The Jacob & Co Epic SF24 Grand Complication packs an extraordinary amount of horological content into its asymmetric 18K rose gold case. A flip-card Solari-style drum at the top of the case displays the current city and hour for a second time zone — New York is legible in the product shot — scrolling mechanically via a proprietary module. Below it, a large-diameter flying tourbillon cage occupies the left subdial, while a conventional time display with a 24-hour indicator sits at lower right. Cities of the world are engraved across the dial plate in a repeating typographic pattern, reinforcing the world-time narrative. The in-house JCAM19 movement drives all functions and is visible through the open architecture of the dial.

Limited to 101 numbered pieces, the Epic SF24 represents Jacob & Co's ambition to compete with the grand complication outputs of maisons like Patek Philippe and A. Lange & Söhne — but filtered through a visual language that owes more to automotive design than to Geneva classicism. That duality has made it a polarising but undeniably serious collector piece. The combination of a tourbillon, dual time zone with mechanical city display, and retrograde complications in one watch at this scale of finish is rare at any price point.

Messi has long favoured Jacob & Co, a brand whose founder Jacob Arabo built his reputation partly through high-profile athlete clientele. The choice reflects both personal loyalty and an appetite for pieces that communicate achievement without subtlety. At a Golden Shoe celebration attended by football media, the Epic SF24 reads as entirely deliberate — loud, technically justified, and impossible to ignore.

At UK list price of approximately £150,000 (circa $190,000 USD at time of release), the Epic SF24 sits in rarefied territory for an independent brand. Grey-market activity on the 101-piece edition has been limited given the small production run, but documented secondary sales have held close to or above retail, reflecting genuine demand among serious collectors who respect Jacob & Co's in-house movement programme.