Lionel Messi is also excelling at club level again, which has to do with a certain feel-good factor. On his PSG move, the 36-year-old made admissions.
Paolo Maldini, Ryan Giggs, Lionel Messi? The Argentine didn’t make it into this list of legendary “one-club men”. Even if very few people expected him to actually leave “his” FC Barcelona. However, because the Catalans had made reckless investments, in which Messi was not uninvolved with an astronomical salary, there was finally a rather surprising move to Paris in the summer of 2021.
The world champion is now very critical of his excursion to the sheikh club, which ended two rather unspectacular years later for Messi. “This change was not what I wanted,” Messi admitted at his first press conference in the service of his new employer Inter Miami. He had not wanted to leave Barça at all – but staying was an impossibility.
Messi and PSG have failed in the Champions League
Typically for Messi, his two years in France are immortalised in the history books with impressive statistics. The left-footer amassed 32 goals and 35 assists in 75 competitive games, though that couldn’t eclipse his Champions League failure. In both years – against Real Madrid in 2022 and FC Bayern in 2023 – Messi and PSG were eliminated in the last 16 of the Champions League, and he was not convincing in any of the four knockout round matches.
And yet the 36-year-old is still capable of great performances at a ripe old age, as a few moments at the World Cup in Qatar impressively proved. In early retirement from football in the MLS these days, Messi continues to shine – and have great fun doing it. “The most important thing is to feel good and enjoy what you are doing,” said the world champion, who says he just needs to get used to the hot weather in Miami.
