Messi pledges to leave the stage for Neymar
As part of an exposé on the Brazilian by Antoine Bourlon, via the Ballon d’Or-awarding France Football, there are confessions that Messi apparently made to Neymar in the aftermath of the results are set to send shock-waves through Catalonia, Argentina and the rest of the soccer world.
Talking to his friend on the telephone, Messi apparently said: ‘Only together can we win the Champions League, I want you to come back. In two years I will leave and you will take over’. Contacting him for comment, Bourlon told me that details of this conversation were revealed ‘by sources in Paris and Barcelona’.
That Barça’s captain wishes to see ‘Ney’ back in Blaugrana colours is no secret. He was pursued over
the course of the summer to reverse his world record transfer from PSG, and, if Gerard Pique is to be
believed, several FC Barcelona stars were even willing to take a pay cut to facilitate the move.
What has set alarm bells ringing instead however, is Messi’s voicing of an intention to leave in ‘two
years’, which it is safe to assume would mean upon expiration of his current contract in mid-2021.
As has been well-documented, Josep Bartomeu recently voiced plans to offer Messi a fresh ‘indefinite’ deal
before director of football Eric Abidal insisted ‘that the president is talking to his representatives to
close the case once and for all’.
Incensed by such claims, Miguel Rico at Mundo Deportivo poured scorn on them last week. ‘They speak
of the future fluently, as they have always done,’ Rico pointed out, ‘but negotiating, what is said of
sitting face to face to discuss the conditions [of a new deal], they are not. Nor do they know when they
will sit down [to do it], as they are the only ones that mark the times [and meetings].’
With Messi no closer to signing on the dotted line, fans and pundits will be sent into a tailspin in worry
that the most famous graduate of the La Masia academy, at the club for almost two decades, is ready to call
time on his Barça legacy.
On the contrary, though, the news shall be received in a positive light in Argentina and in particular by
followers of Newell’s Old Boys in his hometown Rosario. As has long been threatened, they will be
buoyed by the possibility of a then 34-year-old Messi seeing out his career at the outfit where it all
started for him.
Or perhaps nothing too serious should be read into this, with the player confessing since the Anfield
debacle that his family is settled in the Catalan capital and that it would be hard to convince them of
a move across the Atlantic.
Messi could have just been speaking in the heat and hurt of the moment, still intending to be a one-club
man while closing in on his 700th appearance for the LaLiga holders this week.