Given all that he meant to the Catalan Club, Lionel Messi deserved a much better ending to his time at FC Barcelona. He may still get that opportunity, but it’s complicated as to how he’ll reach that point. It won’t be this season either. The Argentinian G.O.A.T. will stay at Paris Saint-Germain this season, realizing the second and final year of his current contract.
“Leo has a contract, so it’s impossible, impossible,” Barcelona boss Xavi Hernandez said to a news conference in Dallas, Texas ahead of tonight’s preseason friendly against Juventus at the historic Cotton Bowl.
“It doesn’t make sense to speak about Messi. He is the best player in the world and the best ever. The president has already said that he hopes Messi’s story has not finished with Barcelona. We will see in the future, but it’s not the moment to speak about Leo, it’s the moment to talk about the exciting players we have here.”
Messi, 35, joined PSG on a two-year deal last summer, mostly because Barca, suffering through massive financial problems, could not afford to extend his contract. Messi was brought to PSG for one primary reason above all- help the French powerhouse win their first ever UEFA Champions League.
Obviously, it didn’t happen, but this specific challenge has to be extremely motivating to the galactico winger, who has accomplished oh so much and needs to find new mountains to climb.
In their last preseason friendly, against something called Gamba Osaka, Messi scored, along with Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. If that happens all the time, then maybe this will be their year for European glory, finally.
Whether or not that happens, one can expect Messi to return to Catalonia, with Barcelona Team President Joan Laporta proclaiming that it’s going to happen.
“Messi was everything,” Laporta told ESPN.
“To Barca, he’s been possibly its greatest player, the most efficient. To me he’s only comparable to Johan Cruyff. But it had to happen one day.
“We had to make a decision as a consequence of what we inherited. The institution is in charge of players, coaches.
“I would hope that the Messi chapter isn’t over. I think it’s our responsibility to try to … find a moment to fix that chapter, which is still open and hasn’t closed, so it turns out like it should have, and that it has a more beautiful ending.”
“As president of Barca, I did what I had to do. But also as president of Barca, and on a personal level, I think I owe him.”
Messi is Barca’s all-time leader in goals scored and appearances made. So Laporta is definitely telling it like it is.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and he co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast, part of Edge of the Crowd Network. Follow him and the website on Twitter and Instagram.