There is no general and universal definition of what a good relationship is. But it is understood that it should be a reciprocal and bidirectional feeling, and that has never occurred in the relationship between Messi and PSG. The only reciprocal thing between them is convenience. Messi needed to heal his wound and he looked for a patch away from Barcelona, and in Paris they needed another star (because they didn’t have enough) to win the Champions League once and for all. It all started forced.
The fact that a few days ago the Argentine went to Saudi Arabia without the permission of the club to carry out a publicity act did not help the relationship to prosper, really. What stung Al-Khelaïfi was not that he left without his consent, but that he went to Arabia, just when it is rumored that he could play there next season. That and that he was overwhelmed by popular pressure and decided to punish him with two weeks without getting paid, without playing or training. Of those two weeks he has completed one, after a public pardon, of course.
He published a 38-second video in which he was dressed in a suit, without a tie, with his hands in his pockets and with the same pose that a child has when he has to apologize to his brother forced by his parents. He excused himself in a pattern that the team had followed, that of releasing after each game. And he justified himself with an advertising commitment. Messi asked for forgiveness in an official way, without feeling it. Like the one he records when he goes to work or brushes his teeth in the morning. It’s what he plays. A speech that he could have written with ChatGPT. But he worked for him.
It cannot be said that Monday was a bad day for him. In the morning, pardon from the club and in the afternoon, award at the Laureus 2023 gala that accredits him as the best athlete of the year.
I have never received an individual award, so I don’t really know what I would say when I picked it up. I guess I would remember my family and friends. Of those who have been along the way and not at the end, those are the ones that really matter. The people that come to mind at that moment are the people who mean the most to you, the ones who have marked you the most and the ones who evoke all the times you have been happy. So, from my zero experience preparing speeches, I would dare to say that a bit of that happened to Messi. Going up on stage and picking up one of the sports Oscars, he remembered the ones he loved the most. His words were directed, obviously to his family, to the Argentine team, with which a few months ago he touched the world sky in Qatar. And he also remembered Barça. From PSG, no sign. The speech was not very tearful, but it was significant: “This year I was lucky to fulfill my great dream, to be world champion, it cost me a lot, almost my entire career, in between I went through everything, many joys with Barcelona and a lot of sadness with the national team, but I never stopped, and everything was a lesson for me”.
He remembered the Barça club like the one who remembers his ex. Going over it, but making it clear that he hasn’t forgotten, that the wound isn’t closed. Nostalgia or wink? In a month we will finally know if Paris, Arabia or Barcelona. Although, as Sabina would say: “You should not try to return to the place where you have been happy.”
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