The heart-breaking end to Lionel Messi’s 21-year love affair with FC Barcelona turned the football world sour over the weekend. The news that Messi will not continue with Barcelona dropped like a bombshell on Thursday, shattering hopes, dreams and happiness of the club, the player and teeming fans who were in expectation of the opposite news – that the Argentine has committed the rest of his career to Barcelona.
Messi’s future had been surrounded with uncertainties since June last year when he asked to leave Barcelona, igniting an unprecedented uproar that took the resignation of the then Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu, and the election of new president Joan Laporta, to calm.
However, it all seemed to have come to a happy ending a few weeks ago, when Messi agreed to a new five-year deal that will see him remain in Barcelona till the age of 39. The 34-year old had returned from Ibiza, where he had been on vacation after winning Copa America with Argentina, to seal the contract, when the whirlwind of misfortune hit home. “Leo Messi will not continue with FC Barcelona,” the club had said in a statement. Those were the eight words that shattered dreams and threw the world of football into disarray.
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Messi himself was in shock upon receiving the news. He was ready for another half a decade ride with his beloved club.
“This year, my family and I were convinced we were going to stay at home, that’s what we all wanted more than anything,” he said during his tearful press conference on Sunday. “We’d always made this our own, we were at home. We thought we would be staying here in Barcelona. But today, we have to say goodbye to all of this.”
As the emotion ignited by Messi’s departure and exacerbated by his emotional press conference swept across countries, memories stemming from his footprints flashed on screens. In the end, it seems to be all that he is leaving behind in Barcelona, a city he has called home since childhood.
Messi arrived at Barcelona at the age of 13, with dreams and hopes for a brighter future not promised. Defying the odds standing in his way, he broke into Barcelona’s senior team at a tender age of 17 in 2004, and started marking his prints on the sand of history.
After 778 matches, Messi has 672 goals and 305 assists to his name for Barcelona. In these numbers are 34 titles, numerous records and personal awards that may not be matched by any other football player. There are 10 La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey titles, seven Spanish Supercups, four Champion League titles, three European Super Cups and three World Club Cups won by Messi. For individual titles, he has six Ballon D’ors, six Golden Boots, one Fifa Best Player of the year etc. Then there are records that include most goals (474) in La Liga, most hat-trick (39) in La Liga, most assists (192) in a La Liga and European season, most goals (91) in a calendar year etc. These were achieved through football ingenuity never seen before.
With more than this history in Messi’s illustrious CV, his journey to Spain has come to be more successful than expected and his dream has had overflowing fulfillment; summing up a football prodigy that has been largely described as the greatest in history. But his abrupt departure is never the ending everyone wanted. Messi’s career in Spain has been cut short by La Liga’s financial and structural obstacles.
“I gave everything for this club from the first day I arrived to the last. I never imagined having to say goodbye as I didn’t think about it. I imagined it with people in this pitch. What’s clear is I did everything possible, and they (Barca) couldn’t do it because of La Liga,” Messi said during his press conference.
Upon his success, Messi said he rued the trophies not won, and would have cherished the opportunity to win more with Barcelona, especially another Champions League. Alas, the journey came to an abrupt end, leaving only memories to fill the void. To Messi, the career journey to Camp Nou has come to an end, but the special moments it created live on.
“It is really difficult to choose just one moment. A lot of things I’ve lived, good things and bad things. Maybe the time when I made my debut. That was my dream come true and everything that came later was amazing. But I will always remember that moment everything started,” he said.