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northor smile, no handshake and no reconciliation. Lionel Messi stays at Barcelona, but this was not a happy ending. It’s over, for now, but there is no real closure and nobody really got what they wanted, maybe not even Josep Maria Bartomeu. A survivor clinging to power will no longer preside over the march of the best player in the club’s history, but he will not shirk responsibility either. His victory, if that’s what it was, is hollow. Messi made sure of that.
The prospect of Messi leaving after 20 years at Barcelona was sad and has been avoided for nine months, but that was never the worst part. The worst part was that it had gotten to the point where he Dear leave; that things were so bad, so broken, that he would turn his back on everything. And that remains; Messi has not fixed it by staying, even less if Bartomeu survived. “I wanted to be happy,” said Messi, “and I did not find happiness at the club.”
Doing so now can be difficult; his final decision, made under duress, did not follow through. All this was not an act: before, during or, most surprising of all, after. It was not a power play or an impetus for a new contract. Messi announced that he would stay at the club he “loves”, but there was no new deal, no promises, no claims. Instead, there was sadness as he spoke, which he did not do on a club channel but on Goal.com. Hours later, the Barcelona website had not mentioned it yet. It was supposed to be good news, best news, but it wasn’t news at all.
There was no celebration, just a kind of exhaustion. From Messi, there was a blunt frankness, a refusal to ignore this or act like everything was fine, their differences were resolved. He could have backed down, he could have said he felt conflicted, he could have asked to draw a line under this whole sorry saga or tried to build bridges, but he didn’t. I could have said it was a crazy moment. He didn’t do that either.
He admitted that he wanted to go and accused Bartomeu of breaking an agreement to leave him. He said that he had been telling Bartomeu all year, that he had thought it over carefully and that his time was up; Now it was others who had to take over. He could even have said that he wanted to benefit the club, help them financially, but neither did he: he insisted that he had the right to terminate his contract and leave for free. Only one thing had stopped him: the risk of ending up in court. Nothing else.
All she wanted to avoid was a fight, but she wasn’t backing down either, at least not with the man she held responsible for how much was wrong. The best part of the breakup is the reconciliation, but there was no reconciliation with those in charge. The day he stayed, far from peace, there was a statement from his father reaffirming Messi’s legal right to leave. Sure, there was talk of love for the club and the revelation that his children had cried, but he wouldn’t allow that to serve to protect the president or pretend to appreciate this result.
Many supporters are with him on it: many wanted him to leave, for his sake not for theirs, a curious emerging phenomenon in which some of those more on his side supported his departure and some of those who most turned against him. they demanded that he stay. His followers were saddened and hurt, but they saw other villains and felt that he had earned the right to decide. Hearing him joylessly explain the decision to stay, they would have agreed.
Messi stays, which should be something to be thankful for, but he didn’t feel like it. Especially since it wouldn’t hide behind a facade. Sometimes when players leave, they fire a farewell shot; Messi gave his when he came back in, brutal honesty. There are bitter divisions; this was a bitter reunion.
Read that line again: “I’m staying because the president said that the only way forward was to pay the 700 million euro clause, which is impossible, [or] the other way was to go to court. “This from the club captain.
“For a long time, there has been no project or anything. They’re doing a balancing act, plugging holes as they go, ”Messi said.
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That approach also applied to him in the end. All year long, he said, they had ignored or discouraged him, then when the time came, short-termism took over and they said no.
“He needed him, the club needed him, he was good for everyone,” Messi said, but Bartomeu couldn’t afford to let him go. She couldn’t afford to force him to stay, either, but she did.
Messi returns to training this week. “The truth is that I don’t know what will happen now; there is a new coach, a new idea, “he said. “But I’m going to do my best.” He will be awaited by colleagues who have remained silent and Ronald Koeman, who said: “I only want players who want to be here and give their all.” Messi wasn’t pretending it was him, and things can’t really be the same now, especially since no one was pretending to be.
