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Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni is satisfied that the country’s all-time top scorer, Lionel Messi, is staying at Barcelona.
In September, the 33-year-old, who has scored 70 goals for the national team, decided to stay with the club he joined at age 13, having sensationally told Barça he wanted to leave the previous month.
With the dispute at the club seemingly settled for now, former West Ham United loan officer Scaloni expressed his relief that the six-time Ballon d’Or winner had turned his attention to matters on the pitch as Argentina prepared to face Ecuador in their first qualifying match for the 2022 World Cup at La Bombonera on Thursday.
“I spoke with Leo when everything was resolved and I saw him calm,” said Scaloni. Since his arrival, we have been able to have a long talk. He is happy to be here. Now he is well in his club.
“The only thing we wanted from a distance was for everything to be resolved and for him to play and be fit.
“For us it is positive that he stays because he was able to play immediately, he knows the club, but in terms of decisions, we do not get into that, we do not step on the player’s territory.”
Messi’s dissatisfaction at the Camp Nou had been brewing for some time due to the inability to adequately replace the club’s legends, such as Xavi and Andrés Iniesta.
Messi also felt that he had been blamed for the eventual firing of Ernesto Valverde by former Barcelona football director Eric Abidal and that the Barcelona board had made up stories that players had been reluctant to accept a pay cut in the wake of Covid- 19.
The final straw came when Bayern Munich thrashed the Spanish giants 8-2 in the knockout stages of the Champions League, which was the end for Quique Setien.
A day after Setien’s replacement Ronald Koeman told talisman forward Luis Suárez in late August that he was above the requirements, Messi announced that he wanted to leave.
Then there was a dispute over the true value of Messi’s buyout clause, with Barcelona saying it was necessary to pay a fee of around € 700 million (£ 630 million), while the player’s representatives argued that he could not leave for nothing.
The club’s star man only decided to stay because he didn’t want to bring ‘the club I love’ to the pitch, he told Goal.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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