Pep talk could solve Messi divorce issue
I READ somewhere that Lionel Messi signed his first contract with Barcelona on a napkin at the age of 14. It was the start of a bond I never thought would be broken. He is the greatest player in the history of a club that has seen so much world-class talent come through its doors. To finish his time there on a sour note or in a courtroom would be sad. But it does seem as though the divorce is coming. Everything has become about this clause in his contract and whether he can leave for nothing. I certainly don’t know whether he is right or whether the club can demand hundreds of millions, but this situation didn’t happen overnight. To he honest, Messi hasn’t been smiling in his relationship with Barcelona for years. He has still played incredible football and finished last season with another 25 goals but he has not been near to winning the Champions League for a long time now. If I understand it right, that is one of the things that he would love to do again. And he needs to find a team where that can happen. The owners of Manchester City also want that trophy more than anything else. His trusted coach Pep Guardiola is there and so, too, is a Barca great Txiki Begiristain as an executive. And they could find the money. It looks like a new marriage that makes sense. The happiness that Messi needs around him seems more feasible in Manchester now than it does in Barcelona. That would have been impossible to think five or ten years ago. At 33, it is now or never for him to experience something else. The Premier League is hugely popular around the world but this would be on another level. For English football, it would be like Christmas Day every weekend to have Messi on show. Who wouldn’t want to watch that?