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In the end, everything is as usual and yet completely different from what one might have expected in the meantime.
Lionel Messi is still at FC Barcelona, but the club’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, no longer. Like his entire management team.
Under Bartomeu’s leadership, the Catalans have often not put up a good image in recent years: there was an obvious strike call for the latest Barça signings, Ousmane Dembélé at Borussia Dortmund and Philippe Coutinho at Liverpool FC.
In addition, the social media issue that made headlines like “Barcagate” because a company commissioned by the club had defamed current and former players on social media. Or the recent dispute over a salary exemption, which the team and the club’s management presented completely differently in public.
Outsiders have been wondering for some time which Barça crisis is the biggest today: the turf or the management?
Messi and Koeman are in demand
One of the two sources of fire is extinguished for the moment with the departure of Bartomeu. The other, however, continues to burn, especially after the sobering defeat of the Classical against Real Madrid.
In addition to new coach Ronald Koeman, Messi is primarily responsible for firefighting work on the field. He is the captain and leader of a team that is currently far from the glamor of the great Barça teams of the past.
But Messi is more than that: the fight for win-win power with Bartomeu has proven once again that the 33-year-old is Barcelona’s unrestricted backstage king.
Messi’s word will certainly play an important role in Bartomeu’s successor as well, and then there is no longer any reason why the Argentine should not renew his contract again.
Will Messi show his skills again?
It would be a bad move if Messi escaped next summer and joined another major European club, and that would amount to admitting a sporting failure.
Unless, of course, he returns Barça to the throne of Europe this season.
The six-time world footballer has to show that he is not only the king of Barcelona behind the scenes, but that he is also still on the Camp Nou field.
There are no more excuses for Messi.
