Messi's melancholy in his last dream of the Champions League

Lionel Messi has physical problems.

In Paris Saint-Germain they ensure that he is not in full condition to compete in the most important game of the season.

Nobody asked about him, however, at the crowded press conference offered by PSG yesterday, the eve of receiving Bayern in what is presented as the most charged cross in the round of 16 of the Champions League (9:00 p.m., Movistar).

PSG fans fear that the best footballer there is is present in body, but not in soul.

The man who lifted the World Cup in December is one more figure in the Parc des Princes, while Neymar trains on foot and Mbappé recovers from a muscle injury.

And time flies.

In June it will be two years since his arrival.

"It is not easy to change the club, the culture, and the country, and to do it in the middle of a pandemic," observed Mauricio Pochettino, who led the landing of his countryman.

"To top it off, Lio suffered from the aftermath of Covid for months."

Messi's entry into the PSG locker room in the summer of 2021 added a dose of unreality to the atmosphere that the squad breathed, stuck in the health bubble.

Everyone was intrigued by the same question: how was it possible for the Barcelona banner to leave his club after 20 years?

Men like Paredes, Marquinhos, Herrera, Di María, Neymar, Bernat and Ramos, the closest ones, did not stop exchanging conjectures until one day they met Messi on one of their birthdays.

The relaxation of the party encouraged them to ask questions.

And Messi, according to two people who were working at PSG at the time, confessed that for him, the change had been a terrible disappointment.

So much so, he explained to them, that if it were up to him he would have stayed at Barça charging 15 million euros gross.

The conversation, according to one of those present, began when someone asked Messi if it was true that he had agreed with Joan Laporta, the president of Barça, to renew for 50 million.

Messi replied that yes, but that they had deceived him.

"And for 30 would you have renewed?" they asked him.

The respondent replied without thinking: "And for less!"

Given the general perplexity, the most daring of the round insisted: "And for 15?"

Messi said that by 15 he would also have stayed at Barça, but that he did not raise it because he perceived that the board did not want him in any case.

As he perceived that his classmates were looking at him in disbelief, he explained his situation to them.

First, he told them that the hardest thing that had happened to him in his life had been adapting to moving from Rosario to Barcelona at the age of 14, in his teens,

and that his priority had been that his eldest sons, Thiago (10 years old) and Mateo (7) did not go through the same thing, leaving their friends in Spain behind to settle in France.

Second, that the contract that he had signed with Adidas guaranteed him 60 million euros per year.

Money is not his problem.

Sources close to Adidas confirm that in 2018 Messi signed a life contract with the German clothing brand.

According to the agreement, the player ensured the collection of a fixed 40 million per year and a variable of around 20 million, linked to the benefits generated by his own product line.

The German multinational established two conditions for the Argentine.

One, linked to his soccer career, forced him to play in one of the five major European leagues, or, failing him, in Major League Soccer in the United States.

Another, linked to his life after hanging up his boots, forced him to participate in five annual publicity events.

The agreement put him on a par with Zidane, the other Adidas star, only with much higher emoluments.

Now Bayern's visit to Paris opens an extreme situation.

Bayern and PSG represent the most ambitious alternative models to the Premier in opposite ways.

Whoever falls will sink into the crisis.

The Bayern board is already speculating about calling Tuchel, in the event that Nagelsmann does not hit the key in this cross after being eliminated in the quarterfinals last year against Villarreal.

The Qatari owners of PSG have discovered that with Christophe Galtier they are no better than with Mauricio Pochettino and they cross their fingers.

Certainties are scarce.

Al-Khelaifi doesn't know how to get rid of Neymar but they want to renew Messi's contract, which ends next June.

For now, the player is silent.

Neymar, overweight

Bayern's visit tests the essence of the PSG project, a company that only finds its reason for being in chasing the Champions League.

The race forces Messi to take a step forward.

"I ask the team to play and run for Messi," says Galtier, who acknowledges that Mbappé and Neymar are in a lower dimension.

Luis Campos, the sports director, demands a consideration in return.

“I told him that I had to lead everyone else and he told me to stay calm,” Campos said.

At 35, the Argentina captain faces what will probably be his last great challenge: winning his fifth European Cup.

His difficulty is multiplied because his legs do not accompany him.

He has a strained adductor.

He also has little company: Marquinhos, the leader of the defense, is going through a period of dissolution,

Verratti has deepened his ups and downs, and Neymar, so far the most decisive man of the season, does not overcome his serious overweight problem.

Galtier not only has not raised the level of the great figures, as Al-Khelaifi claimed, but has also not sustained the performance of the intermediate ranks.

"I feel good physically and mentally," Neymar declared on Monday, with the self-confidence that characterizes his public appearances.

“I am returning to my maximum level.

And it is obvious that when the three of us [he, Messi and Mbappé] are there we feel stronger”.

Bayern appears in Paris with a burden of injuries and unleashed conflicts.

But PSG is no better, clinging to the melancholic leadership of Messi, who wants to play whatever he can in a fit to assume his responsibility as leader of a team that he still finds difficult to feel as his own.

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