made the city his home and the club his
own, had reached the point where he
preferred to leave. That while the rest
began preseason training he was hidden
away alone, refusing to go – a decision
coherent with his stance that he had
effectively left already. Messi, their one,
their all, their everything, had become
so frustrated by failure, so broken by it
all, as to look elsewhere. The trust had
been so completely destroyed, bringing
them to the brink. He had to go.
“I needed it, the club needed it, it
was good for everyone,” he insisted.
He needed to win, needed to find
happiness, he said. And he couldn’t at
Barcelona, not any more. Aware that
time was running out, aware that he had
won just one Champions League in nine
years, he sought solutions elsewhere.
He had no faith that things would
change at the Nou Camp. “For a long
time now, there has been no project or
anything; they’re performing a balancing
act, plugging holes as they go along,”
Messi would say later.
The solution lay with his former coach
Pep Guardiola, Messi thought. He called
Guardiola soon after the 8-2 defeat to
Bayern Munich. Manchester City were
soon on board. There was a chance, they
thought, and they were ready for it. But
they also knew it wasn’t certain: Messi’s
position wasn’t watertight, but nor was
Barcelona’s. City had to wait for some
resolution, or to be invited to the
negotiating table.
Meanwhile, not much moved.
Messi was gone, Messi said. No, he’s
not and no he won’t, Barcelona said.
The league got involved too, issuing a
public statement insisting that Messi’s
contract remained valid and the
€700m buyout clause still applied.
They also vowed that they would not
hand over the paperwork if anyone
tried to sign him without paying
€700m in full – even though it
was nothing to do with them.
It was stalemate. This was no real
solution for anyone. Surely negotiations
would come next? There is a Spanish
phrase that seemed to sum it up nicely:
“Condemned to understand each other.”
As it turned out, they weren’t.
Messi’s fatherJorge flew back from
Argentina to speak to Barcelona, but no
one budged during the meeting. They
were stuck still. “This is a case of who
blinks first,” someone said from inside.
In the end, it was Messi. On the sameday that his father released a
statement accusing the league of
self-interest and a clear mistake in
interpreting the clause, reiterating
that Messi could walk for free and
sarcastically asking what contract they
were reading anyway, one last point
scored to no avail, it came to an end.
Messi backed down; he was staying.
Ten days had passed. In the end,
it had been mercifully short.
Ultimately, the risks were too great.
Messi had missed the deadline that
would have definitively allowed for his
departure. Had he moved sooner, he
would be gone as he wished. But he
said he couldn’t while they were still
playing. He couldn’t prove that hehad informed them of his intention to go
prior toJune10. He insisted the president
had told him he could go, but couldn’t
prove that legally. His mistake may have
been to have trust in a president who
is a survivor. If so, it was a huge, naive
errorhewon’tmakeagain.Itis also
worth remembering that onJune10,
City faced two seasons out of European
competition. Maybe Messi still hadn’t
quite taken the final step mentally.
By the time he did, it was too late.
Barcelona fans had their happy
ending, only there was nothing
happy about it. If this was a victory
for Bartomeu, the president who had
managed to keep the club’s best player
as he had said he would, it felt like a
hollow one. The club’s own media
channels didn’t even reflect the news
for hours, still less celebrate it. Instead
of reconciliation, there was resentment.
Acrimonious splits are one thing;
this was an acrimonious reuniting.
Nothing had been fixed. Everything
had changed, and for the worse,
except the club Messi plays at.
In the interview withGoalin which
Messi announced his decision to stay,
there was no pretence, no sugar-coating
this, just brutal honesty. He had stayed,
he said, not because he changed his
mind, not for love, not because he
couldn’t break the fans’ hearts,
but because he had no other choice.
He was effectively a prisoner.
“I’m staying because the president
said the only way to go was to pay the
€700m clause, which is impossible.
The other way was to go to court.
I would never go to court against
the club I love,” he said. Especially
not when you might lose.
“I don’t know what will happen now,”
Messi admitted. Nor did anyone else.
One thing they did know was that things
would never be the same again. Two
days later, he was back in training. That
morning he was the first to arrive.“I’m staying because the president
said the only way to go was to pay the
€700m clause, which is impossible”More protests...
“Messi stay”