5, the chapter closed on the greatest player in Barca's history." through a statement from the club on Aug. When the expedition returned to Barcelona from Salzburg, it was all over. Those conversations were intense - the tone of them didn't go down well with anyone. "As the hours passed, everything went pear-shaped until the point that the vice-president, Rafa Yuste, and Laporta had a series of calls with Jorge, Messi's dad and agent. "That was when it became clear things were complicated. "The warning signs were there in Salzburg," one club executive told ESPN. For now, though, the chapter remains closed. Lionel Messi's departure one year ago is still reverberating around the club that made him, Barcelona, and there's still some distant hope he can one day return. Reporting and information from Moises Llorens and Eduardo Fernandez-Abascal was used in this story. But before we get there, ESPN's Sam Marsden and Julien Laurens explain how we got here. His contract with PSG expires on June 30, 2023, though there is an option to extend it for another season. In the year since, the move has made a big mark on his former club in Spain and his new club in France, while Messi's future after the 2022-23 season looks cloudier than ever, too. Barca, in €1.35 billion of debt following years of overspending and the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, simply could not afford to give Messi a new contract and had to let him go to French side Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer. Still in denial, Aguero then believed it must be a tactic to convince LaLiga to let Barca register Messi given his importance to Spanish football.Īs it turned out, it was neither of those things. He even thought Barca's website had been hacked. Striker Sergio Aguero, who had only just signed for Barca, partly on the premise of playing with his long-time friend Messi, was with Spanish Twitch streamer Ibai Llanos when the news broke, and like De Jong, he refused to believe it too.
He won four Champions League and 11 LaLiga titles, and was named the best player in the world on six occasions (and for a seventh time since leaving.) Barca without Messi was unthinkable Messi playing in another club's shirt was unimaginable.īarcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong, who was collecting family from the airport, didn't believe the news when he heard it. During that time, he became the club's record appearance holder and top scorer, scoring 672 times in 778 games. Messi, 34 at the time, spent 20 years at Barcelona after arriving from Argentina as a teenager.
0 kommentar(er)
