Lionel Messi leaves Barcelona: Agüero's long faces and the squad in the first training session without the Argentine star

08/06/2021 17:09

• Clarín.com

• sports

Updated 08/06/2021 17:09

Barcelona players have already begun to fire Lionel Messi through social networks, almost 24 hours after the announcement that shook the world of football.

The first one to do it was former captain Carles Puyol and then Sergio Busquets and Gerard Piqué “cheered up”, two of the leaders of the squad who won everything.

The messages of young promises like Ansu Fati also appeared.

Did they take time because they don't want it?

Because they are angry with him and he is indifferent?

No. They

took time because, like Messi himself, they still can't believe that 10 is no longer part

of Barcelona's professional

team

.

Not even when a few minutes after the announcement, through a brief statement and a post on social networks, the official website removed Messi from the list of players who will make up the squad for the 2021/22 season.

Barcelona's first training session after the departure of Lionel Messi.

Photo: FC Barcelona

Hours before training, at a press conference, the Blaugrana president himself, Joan Laporta, said that he would have liked to announce the renewal together with Rosario "but you

have to live in reality

."

"Something else had to have happened," Joan Gaspart

, former Barca president

, told

ESPN

.

Everyone has their reasons on the table but no one understands what happened.

They only know that the blow left them against the ropes.

Fans crying around the stadium, others protesting, photos are taken with a billboard of the top scorer

in Blaugrana history.

One last memory.

One last dose of the emblem that was forced to say goodbye.

The French Antoine Griezmann, one of those pointed out by the fans, in the first training session without Messi.

Photo: FC Barcelona

The truth is that this weekend, the

Barcelona

squad will

face Juventus in an empty Camp Nou like never before

, for the legendary Joan Gamper Cup.

A traditional Catalan trophy that, before being put into play, observes from a lectern the presentation of the players, the reinforcements and its referent gives a speech presenting the trophies won and announcing the objectives for the new season.

The "Flea" will no longer be shouting "Visca Barca", like that night in 2010 when he even gave an insult, past drinking, encouraging his Argentina.

Ronaldo Koeman

received the players on Friday and sent them to do exercises, in the midst of

a tense climate, of commotion.

Almost a wake

.

The face of Sergio “Kun” Agüero, one of the incorporations and a friend of Messi's soul, who was excited to play every weekend with the Argentine team's top scorer, is one of mixed feelings, between the illusion of starting a new stage and

the disappointment that nothing turns out to be as expected

.

Aguero, last in the line of players during a drill in practice this Friday.

Photo: FC Barcelona

Low heads and slow walks.

Exercises done almost out of commitment and reluctance.

So it was on day 1 of the Post Messi era.

August 15 will be local for the first date of La Liga against Real Sociedad.

In silence, due to the lack of public due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

The sadness of the first training session, it seems, will be the continuous face of a team that

must resurface

and rebuild itself from the rubble that is too heavy.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sergio Busquets (@ 5sergiob)

LM

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Lionel Messi leaves Barcelona: the club has already deleted the Argentine star from the squad on its website

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