“Messi eleven goals nothing more…?” Yes, eleven. The subject used to scoring fifty, sixty, seventy and even 91 goals per season closed the 2021-2022 academic year with that modest figure in the paris st germain. What was…? Is it the end of genius…? Did he expire at the age of 35…? He happened that in that period the seven plagues of Egypt and all the loose calamities that lurked there were joined.
The Copa América ended very late, when the European teams had already returned to work, Leo left Brazil on July 11, took his month of vacation and happily returned to Barcelona to sign his already agreed renewal contract, but received the famous door slam : “You can’t stay here,” they blurted out. And he saw himself out of everything. A sledgehammer blow that he would never have expected, he knocked him out.
‘He hasn’t stopped being the best footballer in the world’
In the midst of his anguish, a lifesaver appeared: the PSG. Change of city, of life. He fixed quickly and, without doing preseason, debuted late, on the fourth date, without knowing the medium or the coach or his new teammates. And with a suggestion of Pochettino that never finished carburizing. Stuck in as a wedge, he made five trips to South America to play twelve Qualifier games. In one of them he received the terrible blow from the Venezuelan defender Luis Martínez that sank his knee inward, with his subsequent inactivity. Once recovered, the ten-day break for the holidays arrived, one more journey, to Rosario. And there, another surprise plague: the covid, which forced him into a 14-day quarantine. He had never passed her in seventeen years of career. He was a shadow of himself: just those 11 goals and 15 assists. The whole combo cost him the unimaginable: whistles and some booing from the Paris ultras. And that for the first time he was not even among the 30 nominees for Golden Ball. But he has not stopped being the best footballer in the world. Others may have a better year, none of their quality.
However, the sun came out again at the Messi house. He cut his vacation short, started training a week earlier and was finally able to have a strong preseason. A new driver arrived with a reputation for being hard to impose order and discipline: Christophe Galtier. And he was dazzled by him: “When Leo smiles, the team smiles. He is loved and admired by his peers, ”said Mr. Whip, who totally softens when referring to Lionel.
He complies with all the training sessions, gets involved, smiles, talks with his teammates, he is an inspiration for our players
“He complies with all the training sessions, he gets involved, he smiles, he talks with his teammates, he is an inspiration for our players and I appreciate every moment I have to see him on the pitch, to greet him every day because he represents the example to follow… He has. won everything, but he is not satisfied, far from it, “he added. Indeed, he is seen physically optimal, happy and with authority within the team.
Galtier seems to have found the position in which he will get the most juice out of him: in the center, in front of the midfield line and behind the two attackers (Neymar and Mbappe). He acts as orchestrator and passer, but he arrives in front of the goal and is not that far from the area. Now he has more contact with the ball and more touch possibilities.
He is playing well as a 10 point guard. He has 3 goals in the first two official matches, but he gives us the chance that he may reach thirty. At twenty he was the atomic bomb, at 35 he lost speed and power, something biologically logical, but he is cerebral like never before and he can have a feast putting balls ahead of Neymar and Mbappé. Or playing with both. The Galtier system (3-4-1-2) supports him, covers his back well. Three center backs (Sergio Ramos-Marquinhos-Kimpembe), a line of four with two full-backs-midfielders (Hakimi-Nuno Mendes) together with two midfielders (Verratti-Vitinha), Messi in front to handle the ball and two well-defined strikers (Neymar-Mbappé). This scheme allows Leo to ignore defensive tasks -for that there are already seven- and dedicate himself to creating, supplying the two top cracks and trying to get to the area to define.
Galtier changed the face of PSG in just two games. He looked solid defensively, with more pressure, stronger in the head, with control of the game. He lifted Neymar a lot, Sergio Ramos is physically recovered and the young Portuguese Vitinha seems like a revelation. He is an upgraded version.
Leo was the sensation on the tour of Japan due to his game, he also scored two goals in three friendlies, one against Kawasaki Frontale and another against Gamba Osaka, he scored the first against Nantes in the French Super Cup being the figure and added another two against Clermont, at the start of the league. With the last three he contributed 1,002 club goals, 684 own goals and 318 assists. And if we add the National Team, there are 1,140, divided into 772 conversions and 368 passes resulting in goals. All in 976 games. A real animal. Nobody did. And without being a pure striker years ago, without ever having been an area player.
After the goals in Clermont, the grandstand began with the symphony that thundered in his time at Barsa: “Meee-ssi, Meee-ssi…” It also turned the demanding and peculiar Parisian fans, always in their style, without demagoguery, in silence and for what he does on the field.
Will he return to Barcelona?
Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona, acknowledged the desire to re-sign him in 2023 to suture the stab wound: “I hope and wish that Messi’s chapter at Barça has not ended. Morally, I am indebted to him.” Messi does not manifest. He no longer has empathy with the Barça starter and has adapted to Paris. It is very difficult to return because, in addition, PSG wants to offer him a contract extension until mid-2024. Leo’s arrival in Paris represented a fabulous deal for the Franco-Qatari club, which for the first time reached a turnover of 700 million euros annual and began to rub shoulders in that area with the Madrid, Barça, Liverpool, both Manchester.
Marc Armstrong, director of PSG’s commercial area, revealed that the club grew by 40% in all areas. Ten new sponsors arrived with contracts 70% higher than those made before Messi (AM). For the first time, they exceeded one million shirts sold, 60% of them with the number 30 of the Flea. Only in the first three hours of announcing the signing, 933,000 euros were collected in the official store on Champs Elysées. “Unfortunately, you can’t produce a lot of extra shirts, we can’t meet the demand for Messi shirts, no one can. We have reached the ceiling. We’re already selling a lot of jerseys, maybe more than any other team in the world for one player,” Armstrong said.
Exceptional growth was recorded on social media, with PSG reaching 150 million followers on social media for the first time. And the box office… “There are no more tickets to every game, with a record income among European clubs by location, with eight times the number of fans who are left without tickets or VIPs,” he adds.
But the real deal of having Leo is on the green grass. And this year he promises big profits.
last tango
JORGE BARRAZA
For the time
@JorgeBarrazaOK
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