As the season draws to a close and the transfer rumour mill starts moving at a pace best described as rapid, Bet9ja Ambassador Victor Ikpeba discusses a topic that will provide a lot of talking points in the summer of 2023, how do you solve a problem like Lionel Messi and PSG?
VI: What’s next for Lionel Messi? That is the question on so many people’s lips at the moment and truthfully, I don’t know what his next move will be.
I don’t think his time at PSG has been successful overall and the club itself has been experiencing a very turbulent time recently. Sometimes when you bring in star players of Messi’s quality, and in truth there aren’t many who reach those lofty standards, you don’t get results immediately but the club’s fans and owners likely expected at least one Champions League success since they signed the Argentinian maestro and feel short changed.
Arguably, PSG have gone down the “celebrity” route instead of the strategic route needed to win a UEFA Champions League title and they came very close in the covid-hit 2019/20 season losing in the final to Bayern Munich but with the shortened nature of that season’s competition they have never truly overcome the obstacles associated with reaching a major tournament final and have repeatedly failed in their quest for European glory.
They expected Lionel Messi, who has four UCL winners medals from his time at Barcelona, to be the missing link for the Parisians but at times in the last two years Messi looked more focused on his pursuit of winning the FIFA World Cup with his national side in Qatar as he eventually won the only major title to elude him his illustrious career. I can understand the frustration of PSG fans in a certain way, the club has sacrificed a team-focused approach for the “Galaticos” approach by bringing in Mbappe, Neymar and Messi to name but a few and they have been knocked out of the UCL round of 16 in consecutive seasons. For a club who has won eight of the last ten domestic titles in France, they surely feel like they need to be competing more on the continental stage.
To win the elite competitions in world football, you need team players, you need players that are focused on the task ahead and players that believe in the cause. Messi has shown that focus for Argentina in leading them to the Copa America & World Cup titles inside the last two years but his recent suspension from PSG for an unapproved sponsorship trip to Saudi Arabia showed a lack of focus on his day-to-day job that has enraged the French champions supporters.
I have written before this season about how I doubted PSG’s ability to win the UEFA Champions League based on this lack of a team-centred approach & their defeat to Bayern Munich did not come as much of a surprise to me nor many other seasoned football observers. You can’t really see this current group of superstars at the Parc des Princes winning club football’s most sought after prize with Mbappe sulking when he doesn’t receive a pass, Neymar (who also looks to be on his way out of the club) going back to Brazil to party every March and Messi’s eyes looking for another challenge elsewhere.
Real Madrid have been able to marry a “celebrity” route with a practical team-focused approach to great European success in the last ten years under Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti whilst Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City look like they have finally found the right mix but PSG look so far away from this reality, you feel they need to start over from scratch and give a manager time and the opportunity to use their vast resources to blend the megastars and some workhorse-like players to finally reach the promised land.
So where does Lionel Messi go? Saudi Arabia appears to be the probable location in a move that would see him go head-to-head with old rival Cristiano Ronaldo in a reportedly huge financial deal but Ronaldo’s time in the Arabian peninsula hasn’t been smooth sailing with rumours of the Portuguese legend already looking for a move back to Europe.
A move to David Beckham’s Inter Miami in the MLS was spoken about but talk of that move appears to have cooled and then there is the romantic idea of rejoining Barcelona to play under his former teammate, Xavi. The newly crowned La Liga champions would obviously be more than willing to bring Messi home but there are questions surrounding the financial viability of the move plus doubts about the player’s desire to return to the Camp Nou.
Wherever Lionel Messi ends up, I imagine that his time with PSG will be spoken of as an afterthought when the curtain finally falls on his playing career and he’s probably earned that right given he has won literally everything there is to win!
