MESSI. Paris Saint-Germain formalizes the departure of Lionel Messi from the club at the end of the season. La Pulga will play its last minutes at PSG this Saturday evening, against Clermont.
[Updated on June 3, 2023 at 7:42 p.m.] Messi at PSG: it’s over… or almost! Argentina’s number 10 will play his last minutes in the blue and red jersey of Paris Saint-Germain this Saturday, June 3, 2023, against Clermont Foot 63 at the Parc des Princes. On Twitter, the capital club announced that after “two seasons spent in the capital, the adventure between Leo Messi and Paris Saint-Germain will end at the end of the 2022-23 financial year”. However, Lionel Messi’s career does not seem to have come to an end, as PSG suggested in its press release: “The Club wishes, with certain emotion, many other successes for Leo for the continuation of his career.”
The departure of Lionel Messi is not a surprise. Rumors sending him to Saudi Arabia, the United States have been circulating in recent weeks. A return to Barcelona is also considered by the player’s entourage. On social networks, the capital club posted a second message in which it warmly thanks the seven-time Ballon d’Or, winner under the Red colors
Biography of Lionel Messi
Argentinian by birth, Lionel Messi touched his first balls at Grandioli FC, the club where his father trained. Between 1994 and 2000, it was with the formation of Newell’s Old Boys that he continued his training as a footballer, managing to be spotted in Europe. It was FC Barcelona who set their sights on the then 13-year-old player.
Year after year, Lionel Messi asserts himself within the Catalan club: Barça junior, Barça C, Barça B… then the great Barça, with whom he started on October 16, 2004, during a derby against Espanyol de Barcelona. A real fairy tale then begins: 17 seasons with the Blaugranas, 778 matches, 672 goals, records and titles galore… Messi becomes the idol of Camp Nou and the world of football, obsessed with his rivalry with a another big name of the moment: Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ten Spanish championships with Barça, four Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups or seven King’s Cups, the Spanish Cup… the story is idyllic and allowed him to win, during those years, six golden balls, including four consecutively. If he seemed forever linked to Barça, Messi finally had to change his shirt. In the summer of 2021, Barcelona can no longer afford the salary of the Pulga. Exit the red and blue of the Catalan club, hello red and blue… of Paris Saint-Germain.
Lionel Messi joins PSG on Tuesday August 10, 2021. This is a huge blow for the Parisian club which is entering a new era with the arrival of the Argentinian. Messi quickly finds his place in the game system and continues the matches, even if he is less decisive than with Barça. Nevertheless, the attacking trio formed with Mbappé and Neymar shakes many Ligue 1 defenses.
Came with the aim of turning PSG over in the Champions League, Lionel Messi cannot prevent the capital club from being eliminated in the round of 16 of the 2021-2022 edition against Real Madrid and then the next against Bayern Munich. In the meantime, he will have lifted the World Cup after a final as spectacular as it is brutal against his teammate Kilian Mbappé and the France team.
After Maradona, Argentina therefore inherited another footballing genius in the person of Lionel Messi. But if the 2022 World Cup brought La Pulga the last title that was missing from its list, the weather has not always been good with the selection. There have been many meetings where the striker has not shone and displayed a level of play below his performance with Barça. The differences in context between daily club life and international periods have often been felt, even if Messi has always displayed a certain efficiency.
His skill in front of goal will nevertheless allow Lionel Messi to score 98 goals against his opponents in the Albiceleste jersey, making it the national record holder. Unhappy finalist of the World Cup in 2014 and of the Copa America three times, Messi had to wait until 2021 to triumph with Argentina, during the Copa America, before being crowned world champion in 2022 in Qatar. Also note a coronation at the 2008 Olympics.
Paris Saint-Germain had to take out the checkbook to attract the planetary star to its ranks. According to the Spanish journalist Guillem Balague, author of a biography on the Argentine number 10, Lionel Messi would receive 30 million euros net per year at PSG.
