The sun, which knows a ray of it, has an appointment with one of its stars.
Barcelona-PSG thus sees the best player in the world, six-fold Ballon d'Or France Football, perhaps the best of all time, oppose a terrestrial star, already in the firmament, but not yet the king of the universe .
Leo Messi versus Kylian Mbappé is also the story of this round of 16 first leg of the Champions League, undoubtedly the most beautiful poster of this first knockout round, the most uncertain at kick-off.
Their destinies are linked, the night of a match but also for the rest of their career.
For the meeting, Ronald Koeman, the coach of Barça, decided, in the classic verbiage of the coaches who refuse to personalize the confrontations of stars.
Yet sport often boils down to this.
It is even one of his essential narratives: Ali-Foreman;
Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo;
Federer-Nadal.
“This is not a duel between Messi and Mbappé, it is a duel between two teams where on one side plays Leo Messi, the best player in the world, and we need him in his best form to win the match.
On the other hand, almost the same thing happens at PSG with Mbappé, a very fast player who can make the game very difficult for us.
For any football fan, these two players are a treat, you have to savor it.
"
The two men will soon decide
There will be a qualifier, on March 10, after the return match and depending on his identity, the verdict will weigh on the future of the two guests who sit at the same table.
The world champion grew up with the idol Cristiano Ronaldo, but the Argentinian also populates his intimate setting because he revere all that is beautiful and luxurious.
In January 2020, Messi slipped among the five major he likes to watch on the lawns Neymar, Sergio Agüero, Eden Hazard, Luis Suarez and Kylian Mbappé.
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé faced each other at the 2018 World Cup in Russia./AFP/Luis Acosta
The two men admire each other but must soon decide.
La Pulga is finishing his contract at Barcelona and he will be free on June 30.
The Tricolor prodigy has a commitment that binds him to Paris until June 30, 2022. But the equation is simple: either he extends into 2021 or he leaves this summer, to live a new adventure and perhaps to change dimension again, to touch part of the piece of eternity he covets, the Ballon d'Or.
It is still far from it, but it retains under its soles of wind all the intrinsic qualities to win at least one.
If Mbappé leaves PSG, Lionel Messi can come.
This is the plan of the Parisian management.
His very dream, shared or even initiated in Doha, where strategic and financial decisions are made about the present and the future of the club in the capital.
Messi, the only consolation prize capable of drying the tears of an Emir of Qatar who does not want to be resolved at the departure of the French.
It will be Mbappé or Messi in Paris
Economically and strategically, Paris cannot afford to add Messi to Mbappé and already Neymar, the club's biggest salary, called to remain so when he will soon extend his lease.
Next season, it will therefore be Mbappé or Messi, on the condition of course that the Argentine genius expresses the desire to join Ligue 1 where he would find his Brazilian accomplice.
From 2013 to 2017, the two South Americans wowed the world with their infernal duo for a football summit that will go down in the history of this game. They want to relive this vertigo, which unites them and stuns their opponents.
Before it's too late, while it's still possible.
Lionel Messi could leave Barcelona at the end of the season./REUTERS/Marcelo Del Pozo
But so far, Messi hasn't said anything.
In 2020, he wanted to turn the page of his Catalan life, an enchanted break of twenty years.
His future depends a little on the president who will come out of the polls of the socios (the affiliated supporters) on March 7 to designate the next strongman of Barça.
Much of the salary that this new staff will be able to promise him.
And of course the double confrontation with PSG.
Barcelona, a great club but a declining team and project, may no longer be the right place to stack the Champions Leagues, he who lines up four on his chimney when Mbappé would die to lift only one, just one only one, at least one.
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If Messi must decide for the last part of his immense journey, the world champion must decide without cutting himself.
From the public, who adore him (the French prefer him to stay in Paris rather than see Messi according to a recent Odoxa poll) and his ambition to win everything in the team that will offer him the most guarantees of winning titles .
Mbappé wants a fire team around him
PSG, not a historic club on the European scene but with an ascending project or intact compared to the initial will, can it remain that one?
In three and a half years, the striker will have played in a Champions League final (lost 1-0 on August 23, 2020 against Bayern Munich) but also gone through two cruel and humiliating eliminations in front of Real Madrid and Manchester United in 2018 then 2019 .
It is episode 4 of his Parisian soap opera which is played out before our eyes and the end will have a considerable impact. More than money and his place in the club's “organizational chart”, Mbappé wants a fiery team around him. If the choice was only sentimental, he would stay all his life at PSG, where he feels happy and at ease, with great friends for life, like Neymar and Marco Verratti. But at 22, the man in a hurry already has no time to waste and a destiny to continue to captivate, here or elsewhere. Barcelona-PSG arrives as a turning point, a first in the choice of one and the other. Attention, dangerous bend!
