SOCCER: Messi staying with Barcelona
Lionel Messi’s soaring career at the club that has coached him since he was an under-sized teenage prodigy is set to continue for at least another five years. Messi agreed on Tuesday to extend his contract with Barcelona by two years to 2018. The Argentine forward began his career at Newell’s Old Boys, where he played for five years until 2000, when he made the journey to Spain to join Barcelona’s youth team at age 13. He played for the first time in the senior squad at 16, in a friendly against Porto.
Teammates and World Cup winners Xavi Hernandez and Carles Puyol also agreed to new deals with the Catalan club. “This news means that FC Barcelona has secured its ties with three of its most important players,” the club said in a statement, adding the contracts would be signed “over the course of the next few weeks.”
Messi is the heavy favourite to collect an unprecedented fourth successive world player of the year award. He has 90 goals in 2012, having surpassed Gerd Mueller’s 40-year-old milestone of 85 in a calendar year, and there is still one game to go this month to improve on his astonishing tally. His contract with Barcelona wasn’t due to expire until June 30, 2016, but he’s agreed to stretch his commitment to the club to June 30, 2018.