If Messi accepts that offer, then he will be portrayed as the person with too much power.
Should Barca sell Messi as they rebuild?
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If Messi accepts that offer, then he will be portrayed as the person with too much power.
It is Zidane’s house Manchester edition.
Yea, let’s leave the Barcelona mansion in the suburb to live in a flat in a rainy shithole.
The original exit clause was on June 10. Twenty days before conclusion of the season on June 30th.
Even if Messi's legal team are able to successfully convince the judge that the pandemic affects the exit clause dates and allows for the dates to be shifted, Messi has still handed in his request to leave fifteen days late. He should have handed it in on the 10th of August. He did so on the 25th.
There could be far more to it, but it doesn't sound a particularly tight case from Messi.
Even if Messi's legal team are able to successfully convince the judge that the pandemic affects the exit clause dates and allows for the dates to be shifted, Messi has still handed in his request to leave fifteen days late. He should have handed it in on the 10th of August. He did so on the 25th.
There could be far more to it, but it doesn't sound a particularly tight case from Messi.
Yes, I think there is a bloody good chance it's written in Spanish.
Without doubt he acted with legal guidance. In which case they must be pretty certain they have a strong position. It won't come to that though - he won't leave Barca.
Who’d take then pens or free kicks? They’d be a huge argument between them on the first day.
Easy. Messi on free-kicks, Ronaldo on pens.
Seriously, if Juve somehow can make it happen, this could be seismic for Serie A. Everyone in the world will want to see every minute of it, especially knowing that it won't last too long. They can double their TV money probably.
I read during the season that Ronaldo has scored something like 1 from 43 freekicks hes taken in his 2 years at Juve. I don't think hes got much of an argument there.
He won't go to Juve.
Like Roberto Carlos before him, his reputation as a free-kick taker is wildly overblown.
This looks inevitable now so some thoughts. I'm hoping for four possible things to happen.
Messi has only played well for Barca. Routinely shit for Argentina. So could easily be shit for Citeh
He was fucking rubbish at Anfield for a couple of reasons, he got roughed up a bit early on and the atmos was decent. So could easily be shit in this league.
He is like 33 or something. How many big name players have ever come to the prem late in their career and been any good? From Shevchecko to Schweinsteiger, the ones I can recall have been shit.
He sometimes struggles with other players. I mean how much better would Citeh be with an aging Messi in this league than with an on form and on fire KdB? A little bit at most, and they play in a similar position. Even if they both play and they get on great, they don't have a decent holding midfielder anymore. Their defence, starting from their midfield and all the way back, is toss. If they're going to throw everything at this deal they're not going to be good enough at the back
Messi has been probs the world's best ever player so I doubt he'll be shit. But I don't think he'll improve Citeh too much. Either way we get to point and laugh at the circus.
Messi has only played well for Barca. Routinely shit for Argentina. So could easily be shit for Citeh
He was fucking rubbish at Anfield for a couple of reasons, he got roughed up a bit early on and the atmos was decent. So could easily be shit in this league.
He is like 33 or something. How many big name players have ever come to the prem late in their career and been any good? From Shevchecko to Schweinsteiger, the ones I can recall have been shit.
He sometimes struggles with other players. I mean how much better would Citeh be with an aging Messi in this league than with an on form and on fire KdB? A little bit at most, and they play in a similar position. Even if they both play and they get on great, they don't have a decent holding midfielder anymore. Their defence, starting from their midfield and all the way back, is toss. If they're going to throw everything at this deal they're not going to be good enough at the back
Messi has been probs the world's best ever player so I doubt he'll be shit. But I don't think he'll improve Citeh too much. Either way we get to point and laugh at the circus.
Zlatan is the obvious one. Djorkaeff did well for Bolton too but that's about it I guess. Agree on all counts though
Aren't Juve owned by the Agnelli family, one of the richest families in the world?
Yes they are. I dont mean the owners themselves will go bankrupt, but the club has to balance the books particularly in relation to tue Champions League. Adding the most expensive player in the world to your wage bill while revenues are plumetting seems like a bad idea.
I still think City is a more likely destination than Turin for Messi
Didn’t Zola come late?
Forget the romance, Lionel Messi will not make Manchester City better
Jonathan Wilson
A possible Pep and Leo show at the Etihad is a mouthwatering prospect but a defensive rejig is more pressing for the club’s title ambitions than the addition of a strolling goalscoring genius
A fortnight ago, two key storylines emerged from Lisbon. There was the collapse of Barcelona and another premature Manchester City exit. From a narrative point of view, the reunion of Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola makes perfect sense, a fusion of two current storylines, the rekindling of one of football’s great romances.
There they were, in 2011, Pep and Leo, the genius coach who had changed how the game is played and the genius player with the lightning feet and the extraordinary brain, a collaboration that had created arguably the greatest club side there has ever been. Who dreamed then, as they celebrated on the Wembley pitch after their second European title together, young and hopeful, kings of the world, that it would be a high they would spend the rest of their lives trying to replicate? But age, misfortune and entropy come to us all.
The next season saw José Mourinho’s revenge, domestically. An exhausted Guardiola was unable to respond. There was an incomprehensible Champions League exit to Chelsea, two games in which Barça did almost everything right but failed to convert chances and conceded three times on the counterattack. The template of doom was set.
Messi has won the Champions League once more, in 2015. But Guardiola remains stuck on two titles, behind Bob Paisley and Zinedine Zidane. Semioticians of managerial fashion perhaps saw in Guardiola’s decision to wear a long-sleeved T-shirt under a thin-knit cashmere jumper on a roasting night in Lisbon evidence of his anxiety, an additional layer of protection proving counterproductive as he sweated through both.
As football has become more about regaining than retaining the ball, legitimate questions have begun to be asked about whether Guardiola is any longer at the tactical forefront of the game. Reservations have begun to be expressed about Messi as well. Brilliant as he is – this was the 11th straight season in which he scored 25 or more league goals, quite apart from everything else he does – does he unbalance a side? Why is it that over the past four years or so, both Barcelona and Argentina have begun to fail in similar ways? And can a 33-year-old who runs so little really be worth the best part of £100m a year?
So how better to quell the doubts, what better way for City to complete the project of building Barcelona amid the dark satanic mills, than by reuniting them?
There had been some minor chafing in that final season at Barcelona, a sense that Messi was beginning to weary of Guardiola’s incessant demands, but there is nothing like absence and heartache to sweep away the minor irritations and remind us what we used to have. There could be no better finale to Messi’s club career than for him to complete this one last job, to rekindle the perfect dream he and Guardiola once shared. But for all the bells may be ringing out and calling them together, there is the awkward matter of reality. Football is not – yet – a Netflix series, still less a romcom.
Those quibbles about Messi and Guardiola may still be distant – both remain very near the top of their game – but they are real enough. In 2009-10, Messi regained the ball 2.1 times per game in La Liga. By 2011-12 that was down to 1.2. Since Guardiola left, that figure has never risen above 1tA comparison with City’s attacking right is revealing. The season before last, the role was shared between Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva and Raheem Sterling, who averaged 1.4 regains per game (although Bernardo Silva was notably more effective in that regard than Mahrez). Last season, Mahrez played on the right 20 times in the league and averaged 1.3 regains per game, while Bernardo played there 11 times and averaged 1.8. Mahrez’s comparatively low figure is itself revealing, but it is still about two‑thirds more than current Messi.
Perhaps Messi could find new energy with a new challenge but Barcelona are the archetype of the press-and-possess side. If he is not closing people down there it is probably because he is no longer capable of doing so. To accommodate a figure who offers so little in terms of defensive work would require a significant rejig.
Assuming a player who has only ever played for one club is able to settle elsewhere, Messi would of course add to City’s attacking potency. He should be a guarantee of goals. He is arguably the greatest ever dribbler. He sees angles and options long before they reveal themselves to mortals. Whether he played as a false 9 or on the right, he would make City, as he would make any team in the world, a better attacking side. He has a capacity to shift the momentum of games.
But attacking isn’t City’s problem. They were top scorers in the Premier League last season. They scored four or more goals in 11 of their 38 league games. Their problem, increasingly, is without the ball. That is where Jürgen Klopp and the German school have found an advantage. Guardiola knows that, which is why the thought of Lyon’s counterattack prompted such a major tactical adjustment.
Messi will not make City better defensively; quite the reverse. In 2017, Barça went out of the Champions League having conceded four and three in individual knockout games; in 2018, after conceding three; in 2019; four; in 2020, eight. Managers changed, players changed, systems changed, Messi was constant: he is not the solution to a glass jaw, just a finer grade of crystal. This, anyway, is the first time Guardiola has ever entered a fifth season at a club as manager. Part of his brilliance is his intensity, his relentless drive for improvement and control. Even last summer there were rumblings from within the City camp that he was more demanding than ever before; it’s hard to imagine the disappointments of last season will have made him any more relaxed.
At a time when City’s priority must be resetting their counter-press and reducing their vulnerability to the break, the addition of a brilliant but idiosyncratic attacking talent, however dramatically satisfying, seems a needless complication.
Jonathan Wilson
A possible Pep and Leo show at the Etihad is a mouthwatering prospect but a defensive rejig is more pressing for the club’s title ambitions than the addition of a strolling goalscoring genius
A fortnight ago, two key storylines emerged from Lisbon. There was the collapse of Barcelona and another premature Manchester City exit. From a narrative point of view, the reunion of Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola makes perfect sense, a fusion of two current storylines, the rekindling of one of football’s great romances.
There they were, in 2011, Pep and Leo, the genius coach who had changed how the game is played and the genius player with the lightning feet and the extraordinary brain, a collaboration that had created arguably the greatest club side there has ever been. Who dreamed then, as they celebrated on the Wembley pitch after their second European title together, young and hopeful, kings of the world, that it would be a high they would spend the rest of their lives trying to replicate? But age, misfortune and entropy come to us all.
The next season saw José Mourinho’s revenge, domestically. An exhausted Guardiola was unable to respond. There was an incomprehensible Champions League exit to Chelsea, two games in which Barça did almost everything right but failed to convert chances and conceded three times on the counterattack. The template of doom was set.
Messi has won the Champions League once more, in 2015. But Guardiola remains stuck on two titles, behind Bob Paisley and Zinedine Zidane. Semioticians of managerial fashion perhaps saw in Guardiola’s decision to wear a long-sleeved T-shirt under a thin-knit cashmere jumper on a roasting night in Lisbon evidence of his anxiety, an additional layer of protection proving counterproductive as he sweated through both.
As football has become more about regaining than retaining the ball, legitimate questions have begun to be asked about whether Guardiola is any longer at the tactical forefront of the game. Reservations have begun to be expressed about Messi as well. Brilliant as he is – this was the 11th straight season in which he scored 25 or more league goals, quite apart from everything else he does – does he unbalance a side? Why is it that over the past four years or so, both Barcelona and Argentina have begun to fail in similar ways? And can a 33-year-old who runs so little really be worth the best part of £100m a year?
So how better to quell the doubts, what better way for City to complete the project of building Barcelona amid the dark satanic mills, than by reuniting them?
There had been some minor chafing in that final season at Barcelona, a sense that Messi was beginning to weary of Guardiola’s incessant demands, but there is nothing like absence and heartache to sweep away the minor irritations and remind us what we used to have. There could be no better finale to Messi’s club career than for him to complete this one last job, to rekindle the perfect dream he and Guardiola once shared. But for all the bells may be ringing out and calling them together, there is the awkward matter of reality. Football is not – yet – a Netflix series, still less a romcom.
Those quibbles about Messi and Guardiola may still be distant – both remain very near the top of their game – but they are real enough. In 2009-10, Messi regained the ball 2.1 times per game in La Liga. By 2011-12 that was down to 1.2. Since Guardiola left, that figure has never risen above 1tA comparison with City’s attacking right is revealing. The season before last, the role was shared between Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva and Raheem Sterling, who averaged 1.4 regains per game (although Bernardo Silva was notably more effective in that regard than Mahrez). Last season, Mahrez played on the right 20 times in the league and averaged 1.3 regains per game, while Bernardo played there 11 times and averaged 1.8. Mahrez’s comparatively low figure is itself revealing, but it is still about two‑thirds more than current Messi.
Perhaps Messi could find new energy with a new challenge but Barcelona are the archetype of the press-and-possess side. If he is not closing people down there it is probably because he is no longer capable of doing so. To accommodate a figure who offers so little in terms of defensive work would require a significant rejig.
Assuming a player who has only ever played for one club is able to settle elsewhere, Messi would of course add to City’s attacking potency. He should be a guarantee of goals. He is arguably the greatest ever dribbler. He sees angles and options long before they reveal themselves to mortals. Whether he played as a false 9 or on the right, he would make City, as he would make any team in the world, a better attacking side. He has a capacity to shift the momentum of games.
But attacking isn’t City’s problem. They were top scorers in the Premier League last season. They scored four or more goals in 11 of their 38 league games. Their problem, increasingly, is without the ball. That is where Jürgen Klopp and the German school have found an advantage. Guardiola knows that, which is why the thought of Lyon’s counterattack prompted such a major tactical adjustment.
Messi will not make City better defensively; quite the reverse. In 2017, Barça went out of the Champions League having conceded four and three in individual knockout games; in 2018, after conceding three; in 2019; four; in 2020, eight. Managers changed, players changed, systems changed, Messi was constant: he is not the solution to a glass jaw, just a finer grade of crystal. This, anyway, is the first time Guardiola has ever entered a fifth season at a club as manager. Part of his brilliance is his intensity, his relentless drive for improvement and control. Even last summer there were rumblings from within the City camp that he was more demanding than ever before; it’s hard to imagine the disappointments of last season will have made him any more relaxed.
At a time when City’s priority must be resetting their counter-press and reducing their vulnerability to the break, the addition of a brilliant but idiosyncratic attacking talent, however dramatically satisfying, seems a needless complication.
I know there is a tendency now to see football teams as a whole, an integrated unit rather than individuals but suggesting that Messi is repsonsible for Barca conceding so many goals lately is stretching it beyond a logical conclusion. Barca play a high defensive line, theyve recruited poorly in defensive position and the holding midfielders that are supposed to screen Busquets/Vidal have been allowed to age into irrelevance.
Well, I think no one in their right mind will argue that Messi is responsible for Barca's defense being shit. But there is at least a kernel of truth behind the phrase "Barcelona and Argentina have begun to fail in similar ways" in that once you have a player or two who don't do much off the ball, you have to compensate by having more water-carriers and ball-winners around, which then leads to more dependence on Messi to provide the creativity every time, which also makes it easier to stop him. Argentina bored everyone to death in the World Cup playing 3 defensive midfielders; Barca got walloped 8-2 playing a narrow defensive 4-4-2 with 2 CMs as wingers.
So even though I'm not sure I'm buying the entirety of Jonathan Wilson's argument – I'm conditioned never to bet against Messi – the phrase "he is not the solution to a glass jaw, just a finer grade of crystal" feels true to me. Beautifully written phrase too, it has to be said.
Mirror is saying that Messi to City is foregone conclusion
I'm really disappointed in Messi going there.
Not that he's arsed, but still.
Not that he's arsed, but still.
Dunno... where else can he go?
I'd be much more scared if Mbappe went to city than Messi at 33. It's like United going all out for Sanchez just because (although clearly a better player). I don't believe he will improve them so perfectly when they are full of other gaps.
Maybe I'm just hoping, but he's 33, not 27. Let's hope he does a Torres
Maybe I'm just hoping, but he's 33, not 27. Let's hope he does a Torres
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