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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says he wants Lionel Messi to end his career at Barcelona.
Guardiola signed a two-year contract extension with City on Thursday and immediately bonded with his former player, who came close to moving out last summer.
Messi’s contract ends next summer and he could sign pre-contracts with any club outside of Spain from January 1.
Guardiola said: “Messi is a Barcelona player. I said it a thousand times. As a fan, I want Leo to finish there.”
Argentine playmaker Messi looked ready to join City after submitting a transfer request in August, only for then-Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu to block the transfer.
Bartomeu then resigned in October, but Messi’s future remains uncertain.
“Your contract ends this year [season] and I don’t know what will happen in his mind, “Guardiola said.
Paris St-Germain has also been linked to the 33-year-old, although all candidates for Barcelona’s presidential elections, to be held in January, have said that it is a priority for them to persuade Messi to stay in the Camp Nou.
“I have great gratitude for Barcelona and what they have done for me,” said Guardiola, who worked with Messi when he managed Barcelona between 2008 and 2012.
“At the quarry, as a player and coach, they gave me absolutely everything. Right now Messi is a Barcelona player and the transfer market is in June and July.
“We have incredible games and goals and things that we would like to achieve. That’s the only thing we have in mind. The rest, I can’t say anything.”
‘I would have taken a break’
Guardiola’s new contract will take him to 2023 and see him complete seven seasons at the club, provided he was in charge of Barcelona and Bayern Munich together.
Despite the obvious interest in him, the 49-year-old says he had no interest in moving anywhere else and would have walked away from the game again, as he did when left Barcelona in 2012, no agreement had been reached with City.
“I didn’t think of anywhere else, just to stay here,” he said.
“The decision was not only mine, it was also the club’s. If we had felt that it was enough, I would have taken a break.
“But we have the feeling that we still have a lot to do together. We want to continue what we have done in previous seasons.”
