Lionel Messi and PSG’s marriage was doomed from the start – Argentina icon & Ligue 1 giants were always better off without one another

Lionel Messi turned 38 on Tuesday. Paris Saint-Germain’s X account wished him a happy birthday and then playfully added, “See you Sunday”. Some supporters weren’t a bit impressed – because they do not have fond memories of Messi’s time at the Parc des Princes. And nor does the Argentine, in fairness. He’s made that painfully clear over the past couple of years.

In that sense, this weekend’s Club World Cup clash between PSG and Messi’s Inter Miami is being billed as something of a grudge match. As the courteous and rather light-hearted social media post illustrated, though, it’s more akin to a cordial reunion between former partners who came to realise that they never should have got together in the first place – and are now far better off without one another.

Messi never wanted to leave Barcelona. It was more than a second home to him. He had spent more of his life living in the Catalan capital than his native Rosario and started a family there. The goal had been to finish his career at the only club he had ever known as a professional. But both Messi and Barca were betrayed by former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who left the Blaugrana on the verge of bankruptcy with his reckless spending, leaving his successor, Joan Laporta, to try to pick up the pieces with his lever-pulling and legal loopholes.

However, the latter quickly realised that Barca simply could not afford to renew Messi’s colossal contract, making a parting of the ways inevitable – contrary to what was being said in public at the time.

The departure devastated Messi. This wasn’t like Trent Alexander-Arnold leaving Liverpool. The tears the Argentine shed at his farewell press conference were very real, the emotions heartfelt. Even Luis Suarez, who had gone through his own bitter break-up with Barca, was taken aback.

“I had never seen Leo cry like that at Barcelona,” the Uruguayan admitted. “He suffered a lot. It really hurt him.”

Given the traumatic nature of his exit, Messi should have taken some time to reflect on his next move before rushing into anything. As he’s said himself, there were other offers on the table. Less than two days after his breakdown in Barcelona, though, he was announced as a PSG player.

“We came to an agreement with PSG quite quickly,” he told France Football in October 2021. “I was obviously won over by the project, the players it has, the quality of the group… all these elements made it easier to find an agreement.

“Knowing that I had friends in the locker room allowed me to tell myself that things were going to be simple for me to adjust.

“And I was not wrong, because it was very easy to integrate myself, especially because there are many players who speak Spanish like me.”

However, while Neymar’s presence at the Parc des Princes was a plus, Messi’s spell in Paris was almost overwhelmingly negative.

“I had two years where I was so unhappy on a personal level that I didn’t enjoy it,” he admitted to Mundo Deportivo. “I had that month (in 2022) that was spectacular for me because of winning the World Cup, but apart from that, it was a difficult period for me.”

Arriving without a proper pre-season because of Argentina’s 2021 Copa America campaign certainly didn’t help Messi hit the ground running in Paris. Nor did a mid-season bout of Covid-19. But the main reason Messi struggled off the field during that first year at PSG was that he was struggling off it.

His problems may have been very much of the first-world variety – Messi was particularly irritated by the traffic congestion in Paris – but it took longer than he or his partner, Antonella Roccuzzo, expected to find a house, which resulted in the family spending six weeks staying in a hotel.

“The children couldn’t take it any longer,” the forward lamented in Le Figaro.

However, PSG fans rightly expected more from Messi, and not just in terms of goals (he only managed 11 in all competitions in 2021-22 – his lowest tally for 16 years).