"I really wanted to come back (to Barcelona), but after experiencing what I went through and the way I left, I didn't want to relive a situation like that. So I made the decision to go to Inter in Miami." In a video interview from Paris with 'Mundo Deportivo', Lionel Messi announces the decision to go and play in the MLS, in the franchise of which David Beckham is co-owner. "We need to fine-tune the details, but we decided to move on. If it hadn't gone through with Barça, I wanted to leave Europe, no longer be the center of attention and think more about family."
"I don't know if at Barcelona we did everything possible to sign me, I honestly don't know, I know what I was talking about with Xavi, which I hear often since he returned to the club. But I spoke with President Laporta a couple of times, and in any case I didn't want to leave my future in the hands of others." "But it wasn't a question of money, we didn't even talk about it," he adds. Economic discourse has never been a problem or an obstacle for me. If it had been a question of money, I would have gone to Arabia." After admitting that for him the first year in Paris "was very difficult, then in the first six months of the second year everything went much much better. But in the middle of the season there was the World Cup, and it affected the season a lot. I was hoping it would end differently (in Paris), in general it has been two difficult years for me, but now I'm behind me." And now there is the adventure in Florida: "when I said that if it didn't go well with Barcelona I wanted to get out of the center of attention - explains Messi - it means leaving Europe. I had offers but I didn't consider them, because my idea was to go back to Barcelona or leave Europe, and even more so after winning the World Cup which was what I needed to finish my career around here, and live football in another way, that of the United States. I will live it more day after day, always with the responsibility of having to win and do things well, but with much more tranquility". "I have been coming for two years - Messi's words - that at the family level I was sick, I did not enjoy my loved ones. I had a spectacular month when I won the World Cup, but taking this away was a difficult phase for me. Now I want to go back and enjoy my family, and my children."