The Messi Sweepstakes
Despite the glory of having lifted the World Cup three months ago, Messi has found himself at the center of yet another Champions League disappointment.
Credit: Getty Images Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Contributor
PARIS, France — As the prodigal son of football, Messi finally won his long-coveted World Cup trophy this past December. With that success, many claimed that Messi had “completed football” and had nothing else to prove and play for to be considered the “GOAT”. You could argue Messi felt the same as well, as he came back to train with Paris Saint-Germain weeks later than Kylian Mbappe, who himself had partaken in the World Cup final opposite Messi.
The odds of winning the World Cup are very slim, so despite the win streak Argentina had going into the World Cup, the result in Qatar was a surprising one. Messi’s more realistic goal at the start of the season was to win the Champions League; the reason why he was brought into PSG in the first place.
While he had struggled with goalscoring in his first year with the French team, Messi was in immense form to start the year along with a focused Neymar and an ambitious Mbappe. The trio cruised through the first half of the season, establishing a comfortable gap in the French league that allowed them to shift their focus on Champions League glory; something that eluded PSG despite the financial backing of their Qatari ownership since 2011.
However, the unique schedule presented by the very first winter World Cup disrupted the flow of the team. After the extended mid-season winter break, the team was rusty, and Messi was absent, still partying in Buenos Aires, celebrating his World Cup triumph.
Despite Messi’s eventual return, PSG was never able to recapture the form that led them to dominate the French league and their Champions League group. Just in the last month, PSG lost three games in a span of six days, including getting knocked out of the French Cup in the round of 16 against Marseille. They also lost their Champions League round of 16 first-leg match against Bayern Münich 1-0 in their home ground Parc des Princes.
While overcoming a deficit against Bayern in their own stadium is never an easy task, it also set up the perfect game to prove the purpose of Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe on the team. This trio was assembled with the expectation that their god-given talents could lift this team over anybody on any given day. As such, despite the circumstances, PSG was still seen as very much being in the tie by both the fans and the media.
The end result was a major disappointment however: Messi was like a ghost doing cardio, Mbappe arguably had his worst game of the year, and Neymar missed the game entirely because of an injury that (once again) coincided around the same time as his sister’s birthday.
Credit: Getty Images Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Contributor
In what started as another hopeful campaign for Paris Saint-Germain, the club once again finds itself easily dominating the French league thanks to the exuberant amount of money they splash on individual talents. After their elimination to Bayern, a squad that has Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Neymar finds itself at the risk of losing all three megastars at the end of the same season. With Neymar’s constant injuries finally frustrating the PSG board to the point of submission, and with Mbappe basically having a foot out the door to join Real Madrid, all signs point to the inevitability of Messi leaving alongside them.
These circumstances and Messi’s expiring contract naturally ramps up the “Messi sweepstakes”. As of this moment, there are three major candidates for Messi’s signature for the upcoming season: his ex-team Barcelona, David Beckham’s MLS franchise Inter Miami, and Saudi powerhouse Al Hilal.
The Saudi option has only become relevant in the last few months ever since Messi’s counterpart Cristiano Ronaldo made the switch from Manchester United to join Al Hilal’s rival Al Nassr. Ronaldo is currently making over $200 million a year with Al Nassr, and it is highly speculated that Al Hilal has offered a whopping $600 million a year deal to Messi to counter Al Nassr’s Ronaldo transfer. Despite being two years younger than Ronaldo, the fact that Messi won the World Cup and PSG once again got eliminated early from the Champions League makes this financially appealing deal highly possible. This wouldn’t have been the case had Argentina not won the World Cup. The deal’s likelihood depends solely on how much hunger is left in Messi to go for further European glory.
Similarly, David Beckham’s Inter Miami also represents a lucrative deal and potential business opportunities to Messi that he might want to take advantage of. The Inter Miami rumors have been swirling for a couple of years now, with Beckham himself being very public about the interest that they have in the player. Famous football journalist Fabrizio Romano also confirmed the interest and the official bid by Inter Miami, but has insisted Messi hasn’t made up his mind yet on any decision.
Messi has said in the past that he would be interested to play in the MLS once he was done playing in Europe.
Nevertheless, however complicated it may be because of financial constraints, the most romantic option for Messi would be to go back to Barcelona. Club president Joan Laporta has publicly stated that they will pursue Messi this offseason in order to make amends with both the player and the fans for the way in which the club had to separate ways with Messi in the first place.
While for many fans this seems the ideal spot for Messi to hang up his boots, the current financial and corruption scandals involving Barcelona might not make it as appealing for Messi to join them at the moment. More importantly, even if Messi is interested, would legal barriers even allow for such a signing to happen with Barcelona being over a billion euros in debt and the club in the midst of a match-fixing scandal that broke out just a week ago.
The other two alternatives Messi has is to go back to his boyhood club Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina or to stay with PSG, with neither seeming that realistic at the moment. PSG still says that they are in ongoing negotiations to sign a new contract with Messi, but with the disappointment of the Champions League and the uncertainty surrounding the team’s other two stars and its manager, it doesn’t seem as though PSG have much of a bargaining chip to make themselves desirable. On the other hand, Newell’s Old Boys would be a sentimental move similar to a Barça reunion, yet they are financially incapable of getting Messi unless he decides to take a huge pay cut by showing a similar kind of sentiment.
In the end, with PSG out of both UCL and the French Cup as well as essentially having already secured the league, the rest of the season serves very little meaning to Messi. In a club where it is Champions League or bust at the moment, Messi might very well feel that he no longer is in such an urgency to win titles anymore. This could skew his choice of team for either sentimental or monetary reasons. With that said, the gossip mill is only going to get worse for Messi and PSG as Messi’s contract runs down to its expiration in June.
