Sitting outside Inman Perk Coffee on the downtown Gainesville square, Felix Zuñiga scrolled through his Instagram messages, all the way to the beginning of his conversations with former Atlanta United forward Yamil Asad in early 2017.

That’s when Zuñiga first went out on a limb, sending a bit of a fan message to a Major League Soccer player about cutting his hair.

As a local barber working at Ivan Dominican Barbershop, he honestly didn’t expect a response.

Then one came: a generic “thank you” of sorts. That response turned into more conversation on Instagram until the night before a match when Asad was at a Marriott hotel in Atlanta with the rest of the team, in need of a cut the next morning.

Zuñiga didn’t hesitate and agreed to be at the hotel the next morning, just hours before the team planned to leave for its 3 p.m. kickoff.

“I was stoked about seeing all these players in the lobby,” Zuñiga said. “I went up from the lobby to the room with the players in the elevator, but I kept it cool.”