Lionel Messi: what’s next?
The world’s best player wanted to leave boyhood club Barça this summer – but will Man City get their way? FFT finds out what’s gone wrong from key insiders
Public feuds, boardroom brawling and one almighty transfer saga have made for a bitter civil war at Barcelona, and the world’s greatest ever footballer could be its biggest casualty. FFT discovers what’s gone wrong for Lionel Messi in Catalonia... and why he might become a Premier League player in 2021
The World Cup may have eluded him, but Lionel Messi can console himself with four Champions League crowns, 10 La Liga titles, six Copas del Rey, three UEFA Super Cups, three FIFA Club World Cups and eight Spanish Super Cups. No one has matched the Argentine forward’s six Ballons d’or among a list of major individual prizes that stretches into three figures.
The firsts keep on coming by the month, too: the first player to net in 16 consecutive seasons in the Champions League; the first player to contribute 1,000 goals and assists in his senior career. In June, he scored the 700th goal of his professional career with a Panenka penalty against Atletico Madrid.
But despite the trophies and the accolades, Barcelona’s greatest ever player – still the best in La Liga, aged 33 – is so unhappy with his club of 20 years that he genuinely asked to leave in the summer. And he’s still fed up.
It’s a sore, complex subject. Asked for his opinions on the current situation at Barça, long- time midfielder Sergio Busquets said, “If I stopped to give my opinion thoroughly, we could be here for five or six hours.”
Messi, usually the quiet one – in public, at any rate – has been guarded about what he says out loud. ‘ Lionel cries, but not publicly,’ has been the oft- repeated line. In 2020, he has seemingly become more self- confident, emboldened and annoyed, and dropped his guard on several occasions with outspoken comments which let the public know exactly how he was feeling.
Messi’s deep disquiet stems from the way Barça were run under their former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who resigned – along with the club’s entire board – to widespread mockery in late October. Earlier that month, more than 20,000 Barcelona members had signed up to force an imminent referendum on his future – one he would surely have lost, and had unsuccessfully tried to delay.
The night before his departure, a defiant Bartomeu had declared that walking away from the Camp Nou had “never crossed my mind”, only to perform a U- turn and leave.
Messi, no longer a callow youngster – the captain of Argentina and Barcelona – is well aware of his status and unafraid to take on
“WE WERE UPSET THAT MESSI DECIDED TO STAY – WE KNEW THERE’D BE MORE WAGE CUTS SIMPLY TO COVER HIS SALARY”
his superiors. In September, after losing his battle to leave Barça, he labelled Bartomeu’s leadership “a disaster” – and that wasn’t the first time he’d called him out in public. The former president’s exit will have satisfied him, no doubt – but enough to change his mind? That’s still very much on the table.
As part of this feature, Fourfourtwo spoke to a string of figures at the heart of the issue, on and off the record. As we got closer to the club, everything went off the record – people’s livelihoods are at stake.
But what some of them were prepared to say surprised us.
WHEN THE MONEY GOES
“We were upset when Messi decided to stay,” one professional – not a player – who works in the Camp Nou offices told us. “Everyone was. We knew there would be more cuts and there were, simply to pay Leo’s wages. I love him and what he has done for our club and for football, but I love my family and having a job more.”
More than once, Messi has felt like he has been framed as the bad guy in a bad year for Barcelona. He has twice agreed to take a pay cut, but to little effect.
Father Jorge’s influence on every decision in his life has eased since Messi Snr returned to live in Argentina, following problems with the Spanish government amid a 2013 tax investigation. It was still Jorge, though, who flew into a media scrum and hopped in a taxi at Barcelona airport to help finalise his son’s future, when it seemed like he was set to join Manchester City in August.
Jorge had over- protected his boy, who has grown up noticeably in his father’s absence. Messi has always been comfortable around older people – indeed, some of his best pals at the Camp Nou have been elder statesmen: Deco, Ronaldinho, Jose Manuel Pinto. Closest friend Pepe Costa was a Barcelona backroom staff member in his fifties.
In contrast, when it comes to his football, Messi has long felt self- assured enough to take responsibility by approaching managers and leading discussions. He remains stellar on the pitch, even without Xavi, Neymar and Andres Iniesta around. Even when he did have that trio alongside him, the club legend was still head and shoulders above them.
But those elite players of old are dwindling. When good friend and neighbour Luis Suarez joined Atletico Madrid in September, Messi used his now- preferred communication tool, Instagram, to end a tribute to his departing
mate with the words, “You didn’t deserve for them to throw you out like they did. But the truth is that at this stage, nothing surprises me any more.”
Losing Suarez, the Catalans’ third- highest scorer who can still net great goals but has been in decline for two years, didn’t surprise supporters: ultimately, he was incapable of doing the necessary running for Barcelona’s pressing game. Losing him to Atletico, a title rival, did – as did the tiny transfer fee of just € 6 million. His wages were so high that the club simply wanted him off their books.
Not only were Leo and Luis born and raised on the opposite banks of the Parana river in neighbouring Argentina and Uruguay, they were close on and off the pitch: neighbours between the Mediterranean and hills of the national park in Castelldefels, 20 miles south of Barcelona. It was with Suarez’s blessing that Messi suggested he should play in the central striker role, which he did to brilliant effect. The pair’s wives were also very pally, running a shoe shop together in an upscale part of Barcelona.
Suarez’s departure and the manner of it – the former Liverpool man was informed by new coach Ronald Koeman in a one- minute phone call, rather than a face- to- face chat, that he didn’t figure in his plans – hurt Leo, too. Suarez moved on and Messi stayed, but while most Blaugrana fans backed their idol, others considered his emotional reaction on social media divisive.
“I said what I felt in what was a difficult moment,” the Argentine said in his defence. “I understand that people may have thought I should have shut up or let it go, as I did on other occasions, but a lot of things have hurt me in the last few weeks and it was my way of expressing that.
“Whoever knows me knows that I’m not capable of playing any way other than always to win, and giving everything on the pitch. It was like that throughout my career and that won’t change. Today, my commitment to this shirt and this badge is total. It is still intact.”
In August, though, that commitment was anything but intact – instead, Messi asked to leave Barcelona. By September, he was back at training. “At first, with a heavy heart,” one training ground source told us, “but after the first few sessions he started to train very well. He’s motivated.”
“Ultimately, it’s his animal instinct – he’s so competitive,” explains Jordi Quixano, who covers Barça for newspaper El Pais. “He just wants to win and win and win. If he is to stay, he has to win titles.”
Much of Messi’s frustration comes from his craving to be in a competitive side. The player himself admitted last season that he didn’t think Barça had one capable of winning La Liga or the Champions League, but he stayed put – against his wishes – for this campaign.
Was La Liga, locked in a global super league race with the Premier League for eyeballs and the ensuing broadcast rights which underpin the whole operation, afraid that Messi would leave following the departure of Real Madrid rival Cristiano Ronaldo a year earlier?
“We were worried, but not seriously,” Javier Tebas, the league’s president, admitted to FFT diplomatically. “We want Messi to be with us – he’s the best player in the history of football and we want him to end his career in La Liga. We’re pleased that he’s staying with us and not going to another country, but La Liga is also bigger than one man.” It is, but Messi’s appeal remains colossal. In reality, Tebas was relieved that he stayed. For how much longer, though, remains a mystery.
“Ronald Koeman was asked to completely change the team and he’s doing that,” adds Fernando Sanz, formerly of Real Madrid and now a La Liga ambassador. “He’s got Messi happy again and in sync with the team. That is key for everyone: for the team, the club and for Messi especially.”
So if Barcelona’s third coach of 2020 brings them success, Messi’s angst will disappear? If only things were that simple.
FRIEND WITH BENEFITS
Messi’s grievances with Barcelona are many and go back a long way.
It’s clear that he expects to have at least some input into signings, for starters. In 2011, Barça’s talisman suggested the club should sign his compatriot Sergio Aguero, since he knew the striker was going to leave Atletico Madrid. Sporting director and iconic former goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta ignored him.
While the Catalans may have got that one wrong, perhaps they were right to overlook another Messi suggestion: his cousin, fellow Rosario native and former Newell’s Old Boys youth graduate, Emanuel Biancucchi. The midfielder did move to Europe in 2008, but was hardly a huge success at 1860 Munich.
Messi has been unhappy at how some of his other friends were treated, too – and not just Suarez. Goalkeeper Pinto had arrived in 2008 and become a good pal. He was No. 2 to Victor Valdes and played 26 games in his final season of 2013- 14 but, aged 38, didn’t have his contract renewed. So, Messi helped his mate in other ways. Pinto had a sideline in music and was involved in Messi 10, a Cirque du Soleil production presented by Rakuten – the Japanese e- commerce website that, like Amazon, has branched out into production and is Barça’s chief sponsor.
Messi’s influence was alleged to have gone further than the squad. That 2013- 14 season was the year when another Rosario resident, Tata Martino, took the helm having replaced an unwell Tito Vilanova. The assumption was that Leo had influenced the decision, but it was actually another Messi – father Jorge – who had held sway. Martino was his hero as a player ( and later manager) at Newell’s Old Boys, but Messi Jr wasn’t as sold on the idea and relations weren’t great between Barça’s coach and their premier player. The club had set up an increasingly sophisticated sports science department to aid performance, but Martino was already set in his ideas – formed when he was a player in the 1980s – which Messi considered outdated. As a result, the forward wasn’t unhappy to see him go after one trophyless campaign – although Martino subsequently being named Argentina coach brought more frustration.
Messi has a history of falling out with his managers. The best of those, Pep Guardiola eventually walked away, exhausted, in 2012. “I’m leaving or we’ll get hurt,” admitted the Catalan. Every player turned up to see him off, with one notable exception. Part of Pep’s exhaustion came from his relationship with his leading man, the absentee Messi, abetted by centre- back Gerard Pique.
Pep and Leo have, however, patched things up, and Guardiola absolutely wanted him at Manchester City this summer. The club were keen to land him, too – badly. City have long intrigued Messi: as long ago as 2010, he was eager to ask FFT at the end of an interview about the club’s new wealth and what they were paying players.
Guardiola may have grown exhausted by ‘ the Flea’, but Luis Enrique almost came to blows with him. The Argentine – benched for the 1- 0 defeat at David Moyes’ Real Sociedad in January 2015 after his Christmas break in Argentina – needed to be separated from the current Spain manager by Xavi in a training ground altercation. The pair agreed to bury the hatchet; to work together to the best of their considerable abilities. The heated clash appeared to clear the air too, as Barça won the Treble with their celebrated trio of Messi, Neymar and Suarez thrilling the continent.
Neymar’s 2017 exit to Paris Saint- Germain hurt Messi more. None of Barcelona’s players wanted him to leave, and all of them wanted him back when rumours of a possible return surfaced. He didn’t, and Antoine Griezmann was lined up to replace the Brazilian attacker. Griezmann wasn’t a popular choice within
Barça’s ranks, following the televised decision he made in 2017… where he said he wouldn’t be joining Barcelona. He doubled his salary at Atletico, but Barça paid his buyout clause in 2019 despite the players’ – and Neymar’s – understanding that Neymar would return. President Bartomeu had previously declared that the club weren’t interested in acquiring the France forward, when in truth a deal had already been agreed.
Griezmann has been one of several pricey players signed with the € 222m world record fee that Barça received for Neymar, and who haven’t lived up to expectations. The former Atletico ace is an odd fit in the dressing room, seen as too showy. Messi is still undoubtedly the man. Griezmann, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele were all bought for north of € 100m, as the Catalans’ wage bill surged to become the grandest in football. Takings also grew, but rival executives were privately sceptical about Barça’s boasts that they had become the first side to record a billion dollar revenue. They were less surprised when the club denied that it needed a Goldman Sachs loan to pay their staff in the autumn of 2020.
While Messi may have had beef with almost every one of his managers at the Camp Nou, the one he had the fewest issues with was
“BARÇA HAVEN’T PREPARED FOR MESSI GETTING OLD – THEY LET THE FUTURE GO IN NEYMAR AND HAVEN’T INVESTED IN LA MASIA”
Ernesto Valverde. Training was not detailed nor overly technical, but the former Athletic Bilbao boss liked a positive ambience in his squad and the team won La Liga in his first two seasons. Global fans attracted to Barça by the glory years under Guardiola may have thought this was the norm, but the Catalans only won Spain’s title once from 1974- 91 – under English gaffer Terry Venables in 1985.
Valverde oversaw a winning team and was respected for his tactical acumen. Barça had their ups and devastating downs under him – Champions League collapses in Rome and Liverpool the standout horror shows – but the players considered him a man of integrity. None of the outfield players – Messi among them – criticised Valverde, because they liked and respected him.
But then he was sacked.
POTATOES AND SMEAR CAMP AIGNS
A Spanish Super Cup loss to Atletico in Saudi Arabia was the push that Barcelona’s board needed. When sporting director Eric Abidal later declared that the players hadn’t been giving their all for Valverde, they were furious – captain Messi in particular.
Ex- Barça and France defender Abidal, who had been aligned to the re- election campaign of former president Joan Laporta, was now in situ as the Blaugrana’s sporting director. He had previously moved to Dubai and had no inclination of leaving there, but was tempted back. Other prime candidates like Jordi Cruyff had rejected the role as they didn’t consider it a stable one. Bartomeu wanted his friends close and his enemies even closer. Abidal was respected as an astute old team- mate, but then he explained Valverde’s dismissal.
“Many players weren’t satisfied or working a lot – there was an internal communication problem,” said the double Champions League winner. “The relationship between the coach and dressing room was good, but there are things, as an ex- player, that I could smell.”
Messi struck back immediately. “When you talk about players you should give names, because if not, you’re tarnishing all of us and feeding things that are said that aren’t true,” he posted on Instagram.
There was now a three- way clash between three of the four most important people at Barcelona, and Abidal’s days were numbered: in August 2020, six months on, he was gone. Barça’s four captains, Messi, Busquets, Pique and Sergi Roberto, met with the directors to discuss their issues about the team and club. Simply, there was a complete breakdown of trust between the players and board. Ivan Rakitic, rightly suspecting that Barça wanted his salary off their vast wage bill, huffed, “I’m not a sack of potatoes.” He wanted to see out his contract but felt treated like a commodity.
Bartomeu kept a distance. His only player contract negotiations were with Messi, which had become a bi- annual affair. He even joked to a rival club owner that his entire job was bringing enough cash into Barça so that they could afford Messi’s wages. Those familiar with the situation claim there was very little negotiation in these deals: the Messis asked
for a number and usually got it, threatening to depart if they didn’t. He was so important to Barcelona that he and his team didn’t even request three of the contract extensions, but agreed to improved deals after being offered them. With swelling revenues from television, commercial ( the Catalans aped Manchester United’s model of global and region- specific sponsors) and matchday streams, Messi’s wages rose proportionally with club revenue. Both the goose and its golden egg were doing very well as football boomed.
Yet, in a style that has become worryingly frequent, the club have persistently managed to embarrass themselves. Barcelona may be seen as a fan- owned example of how a club should be operated, but they are also a highly political construct – and with politics comes disharmony. In February, a report from radio station SER Catalunya alleged that Barça paid almost € 1m for PR company I3 Ventures to monitor social media trends and create sock accounts upholding Bartomeu’s reputation. In 2020, the club rescinded its contract when accounts linked to the company were shown to back the president, and smear both iconic players – Messi and Pique included – and possible future candidates for the presidency. Barça denied that they were behind the slurs against their own stars, and an independent report found that they did not conduct “any defamatory campaigns” against individuals, but the extraordinary affair raised even more awkward questions.
On his part, Bartomeu suspected his fellow directors were leaking too much information to the media, and changes were soon made. Vice- president Emili Rousaud, the man lined up to replace him, resigned after claiming “someone [ not on the board] put their hand in the till” over the social media deal which should have come in at € 120,000- 150,000, according to the independent report. Barça denied the allegations, threatening “criminal action to be taken in defence of the honour of the club and its employees”. According to sources, no action seems to have been taken. In an August follow- up interview, Rousaud later described Bartomeu as “very secretive” and said he had been “tricking us”.
Bartomeu explained his version of events to Messi, Pique and new head coach Quique Setien, but the players were unconvinced by their club’s actions and tweeted “Puppet” in reply to a journalist’s pro- board tweet. Pique, Messi and Cesc Fabregas, who all emerged through Barça’s famous class of ’ 87, are very close and share a Whatsapp group.
Victor Font, the favourite to be Barça’s next president who plans to hire Xavi as his coach, denounced the club’s mismanagement and added, “The result is the danger of economic bankruptcy and moral decay in which the club has settled. Game over.”
Setien, a confirmed Cruyffista and a man whose football philosophy seemed to fit that of Barça puritans, gave game time to young talents but ran into a wall of player power and struggled to play the football he wanted. Setien lasted until the end of the 2019- 20 season, when his team were obliterated 8- 2 by Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter- finals. Messi was more comfortable with Valverde than his replacement.
Financially, Barcelona were already in peril before coronavirus changed life as we know it. The remodelling of the Camp Nou has been delayed. After a decade of charging one- off visitors top prices to watch matches at their 98,000- capacity stadium, and ushering 1.5 million visitors into their museum every year – 50 per cent more than Catalonia’s Picasso equivalent – Barça’s coffers are empty.
In April, their players agreed to vast wage cuts of up to 70 per cent. They understood
that staff would be laid off if they didn’t, had no issue with the reductions and were willing to make further contributions to support staff living in a state of crisis. Messi could afford it: he is football’s biggest earner, having topped Forbes’ rich list as the world’s highest- paid athlete in 2019. He pocketed $ 127m (£ 98m) from wages and commercial endorsements, with his annual salary currently standing at more than $ 80m (£ 61m).
Once again, though, the club botched their communications, so it looked like the players had to be pressured into taking a cut. Once again, Messi took to Instagram and stated Barça’s players were “surprised” that people inside the club had insinuated such a thing.
“We want to clarify that our desire has always been for a reduction to be applied to our salaries, as we understand that this is an exceptional situation and we are the first that have ALWAYS helped the club with what they have asked of us,” he posted.
Bartomeu attempted to undo the damage. “From the first moment, Messi said this must be done,” he insisted to Catalan newspaper
Sport. “It’s a gesture that demonstrates their [ the players’] commitment to the club. I wanted it to be something agreed and not imposed.”
It wasn’t enough.
WHAT’S A BUROFAX?
Matters got far worse between the pair this summer. After that soul- destroying 8- 2 loss to Bayern in the Champions League, Messi had made up his mind – he wanted to leave Barcelona. During
“I’VE NO DOUBT THAT HE SPOKE TO GUARDIOLA, THE BEST COACH THAT HE’S EVER PLAYED UNDER, BUT A CONTRACT’S A CONTRACT”
that Lisbon annihilation, his shoulders were slumped, his head down, his hands on his hips – just like they were in similar Champions League hammerings by Liverpool and Roma. The man who always turned up in the most important games couldn’t do it alone. He’d had enough. Barça’s famous forward line had stopped producing: they averaged a paltry 11.2 shots per game in last season’s Champions League, the 24th- highest figure of the 32 teams that competed. Messi’s next move was educating the world about what a ‘ burofax’ was ( in short: Spain’s posh recorded postal service). His message contained a legally binding letter, informing the club of his decision to depart – citing a clause in his contract added in 2017 that he could go for nothing. It arrived too late. Barcelona refused, insisting that the deadline to activate it was June 10 and reminding him that his buyout clause still stood at € 700m. Legal action was mooted.
“It was a story about politics, money and egos – and it wasn’t a noble story in the time of COVID- 19, of animosity between club and player,” states Jimmy Burn, author of acclaimed book Barça. “It wasn’t a great spectacle at a time when people couldn’t go to the stadium.”
Critics claimed that Messi was being badly advised, while those close to the situation felt he was forcing the issue through actions which included not turning up for training, after the club declined to let him go for free.
“The whole thing was a dog’s dinner,” adds Burns. “No club was going to get involved in a serious transfer [ for Messi] when there was an unresolved court case, since both sides were in disagreement. If it had gone to the Spanish courts, it would have been a messy and protracted process. Political too, since Barça and the Catalan situation is a political hot potato. When you look at the candidates going for Barça’s presidency, you can define them by who is pro independence and who isn’t. It’s got nothing to do with football.”
Barcelona were correct, though: a contract is a contract. Nonetheless, the club were also criticised for previously agreeing to a clause allowing the world’s best player to leave for free, on the understanding that he’d never want to leave. He loved life in a city where his family was settled and schooled in English ( Messi does the school run, and is even happy that rugby is played there).
Senior Barça players could understand the Argentine’s frustration and reasons, but that didn’t mean they weren’t surprised about his stance – and not in a positive way. Eyebrows were raised about his adamance to go, and his failure to turn up at training for COVID- 19 tests. Even Suarez, who was treated shabbily, showed his face.
Messi continued to admit that he was hurt, that he would do his best, and that he didn’t want to go to court “against the club of my life”. But he was deeply discontented.
Meanwhile, main suitors Manchester City were left on the sidelines. “If Messi decides to leave Barcelona, the impossible becomes possible,” said City’s director of football, and former Barça forward, Txiki Begiristain. “We will leave all options open.”
“There are so many strands to all of this,” reveals Manolo Marquez, a Catalan UEFA pro coach who managed top- flight Las Palmas in 2017. “Messi didn’t feel comfortable with the board at Barcelona, and he made these views public when before he held back. I’ve no doubt that he spoke to Guardiola, the best manager he’s ever played under – but he has a contract, and a contract is a contract.”
Messi is still looked after by his father and brother, Rodrigo. He trusts them implicitly and has never used a high- profile agent, but has he always had the smartest people in his corner? Few familiar with the situation think yes, although Pau Negre – who once worked at Barça and deals very closely with Messi on sponsorships – disagrees. He says the player is a smart operator.
But what did staunch match- goers make of the situation; the ones you would imagine to be Messi’s loudest supporters? He is still the man who shifts 80 per cent of shirts, after all.
“I was worried my four- year- old son would never see Messi play live for Barcelona,” Jordi Camp, who was enrolled as a socio on the day he was born in 1975, tells FFT. But even he believes Messi could have behaved better.
“Messi is the greatest player I’ve ever seen, but while he’s expressed himself so well on the pitch, he’s not comfortable talking off it,” says Camp. “The burofax he sent saying he wanted to leave Barça was cold. He lives in a bubble. His Argentine accent is exactly the same after 20 years because he’s surrounded by Argentines. He doesn’t speak Catalan, but no one’s perfect. I still consider him Catalan.”
“Messi got his tactics wrong,” one leading football agent tells FFT. “He held the cards, but when he refused to go to training despite being contracted to the club, he got it wrong. He played straight into the club’s hands, and his critics. Barça don’t deal with their legends very well, though.”
KOEMAN THE CONQUEROR
In October, after the club announced losses of € 97m for 2019- 20 – pushing their debt to € 488m – further cuts were required among all club employees, including the first- team staff. It was leaked by Madrid- based paper
Marca that most of the players failed to sign the contract this time, however, while also taking a stand against contract extensions under the current regime.
Despite the apparent display of solidarity, Pique, Frenkie de Jong, Marc- Andre ter Stegen and Clement Lenglet all penned new deals. Again, Barça’s players were portrayed as the bad guys, with Madrid’s press naturally citing a dressing room rift. In reality, there isn’t – just different opinions and two groups: the stalwarts like Jordi Alba, Busquets and Messi, plus the younger lads whose hunger to win impresses their iconic attacker.
Ronald Koeman, a Blaugrana hero and the man who scored the goal which sealed their first ever European Cup in 1992 at Wembley, was brought in to be a strong arm. The board wanted him in charge to help make difficult choices about an ageing team which needed its salary base – football’s biggest – drastically reducing. Barcelona had a fire sale and four world- class players were allowed to leave for free or relative peanuts. Rakitic went back to Sevilla for € 1.5m, while Rafinha joined PSG on a free, Arturo Vidal headed for Inter and
“IT’S HIS ANIMAL INSTINCT – HE’S SO COMPETITIVE. IF HE IS TO STAY HERE, HE HAS TO WIN TITLES”
Suarez to Atletico. Those four players slashed € 77m off Barça’s annual wage bill and, with three of their five oldest players shipped out, the average age of the team started coming down for the first time in years.
“The club felt that we needed to rejuvenate, and you can see that now in the team,” said Koeman in October. “[ Ansu] Fati is 18. We have Pedri who is also 17. [ Ronald] Araujo is
21. [ Francisco] Trincao comes on a lot and is
20. And [ Sergino] Dest is only 19. These are players for the future.”
Messi likes the youngsters who are playing around him and doing all his running: Fati ( La Liga’s September player of the month), Dest ( Barça’s best player in October’s 3- 1 Clasico loss), Pedri and De Jong. His relationship with Griezmann and Dembele is still complicated, however. Both are supremely talented, but have been inconsistent and underwhelming at the Camp Nou; between them, they mark an erratic recruitment policy caused by too many changes to managers and directors.
As well as neglecting La Masia, Barça have let some of their finest homegrown talents leave. Eric Garcia joined Manchester City, for example, as part of a trend which concerns elite Spanish outfits: the amount others are prepared to pay for their top young talents. Wolves winger Adama Traore left Barcelona in 2015 because he wasn’t getting enough chances from Luis Enrique – the man who’s now giving him games for Spain.
Koeman has shades of Valverde about him, but the Dutchman has got his own demands. “He’s quite relaxed during training and gives players lots of confidence,” explains Morgan Schneiderlin, who worked with him at both Southampton and Everton. “He’d tell you to try things to experiment – he’s a really good coach.” But now Koeman wants them to train like they play – a first for Messi.
Koeman does have a chance at Barcelona, though, because football fans are as loyal as they are fickle. At the start of the 2017- 18 season, after Neymar’s exit, there were calls for presidential changes and vocal supporters backing it. They were all but silenced after nine straight wins. Bartomeu was fortunate in one respect with the coronavirus pandemic – that there were no fans inside the stadium to abuse him.
“They would have been going mad at him,” confirms Camp. “I blame him and his board 100 per cent for the affair with Messi. They spoiled everything built by [ former president] Laporta, by Guardiola, by Johan Cruyff. He destroyed La Masia, and had four technical directors in five years. They wasted an insane amount of money on players. I can understand why Messi wanted to walk away from the mess.”
Carlos Tusquets has been parachuted in as acting president until the new year, when Bartomeu’s successor will be voted for. Victor Font is the favourite, but Laporta is also in the mix with Jordi Farre, Toni Freixa and Lluis Fernandez. Whoever takes the reins will have a daunting, overfilled in- tray.
On the pitch, Barcelona didn’t start 2020- 21 well either. Messi failed to score from open play in five matches, and that home Clasico defeat to Real Madrid meant Barça had won only one of their last six home meetings with their arch rivals. Before that game, and after a miserable defeat at Getafe, Koeman even claimed that Messi’s performances “could be better”. If ever there was a sign that things weren’t quite right...
That anger can ebb and flow, however, like Barça fans’ ever- changing mood. With that also alters the likelihood of Messi staying or going – as soon as January 2021, potentially. From then, he can at least talk to other clubs, and Manchester City’s charm offensive will have already begun – realistically, they are one of the few teams who have the financial power to even compete for his signature. In October, City’s chief operating officer Omar Berrada admitted to the Manchester Evening
News, “I think any club in the world would like to explore the possibility of him joining their team. He’s probably an exception to potential investments that we’d do... but our planning has been done with this current squad, and it’s being considered with the opportunities that we have.”
As one leading agent tells FFT, “The president knew that he was going – if his last act was to sell Messi, he could say that he got the best years out of him and then brought serious money in to aid the finances.” “What you see in public [ at Barça], and what you see off the record and behind the scenes is very different,” adds Burns. “In public, you saw a president up against a rope with 20,000 members declaring they have no confidence in him – a substantial number. The problem for anyone taking control of Barcelona is that there’s a huge black hole in the finances. The problems are deep and it will be a poisoned chalice for anyone taking on a club with these finances – especially in the time of COVID- 19.
“Then there’s Messi, aged 33 and no longer performing at the same high level. One of the club’s biggest problems is that Barça haven’t prepared for Messi getting old. They let the future go in Neymar, and stopped investing and producing talent in La Masia which had underpinned the success of Cruyff and Pep. No one understood how Griezmann would fit in with Messi. What would have been better for everyone is Barça and Messi getting a deal out of court where they could have sold him and still got the money in that they needed.”
It could still happen. Barcelona and Messi remain in a marriage where the love left long ago – and one team in particular won’t wait for a blue moon to sweep him off his feet.