Everything we’d love to see before he retires
It’s generally accepted that Lionel Messi has completed football. The World Cup. Two Copa America. Eight Ballon d’Or. God knows how many club trophies.
After playing his final match for Argentina, the only thing remaining is side quests with Inter Miami. But that doesn’t mean we’re quite ready to say goodbye to the greatest player we’ve ever seen.
Here are nine things we’d love to see from the final years of Messi’s career.
Loan back to Barcelona
We’re starting off with a wholly unrealistic one. We can’t help but dream.
Messi appears immensely satisfied with life in Miami, with zero appetite to return to Europe. Fair enough. It’s a healthy attitude, and good for him.
And yet, selfishly, we can’t help wanting more. Messi demonstrated at the World Cup that he’s still among the world’s very best, and it feels a shame that he’s no longer playing at that level week in, week out.
He’s got absolutely nothing left to prove and has more than earned this lucrative victory lap. But we’d give anything to see him involved in something genuinely consequential again.
Especially because we can’t help but look at the latter half of his club career and think that it could and should have been more.
The absolute basket case of Barcelona under Josep Maria Bartomeu. Their Champions League capitulations to Roma and Liverpool. The unhinged chaos of front-loaded Galactico-era PSG.
We’d happily settle for Messi playing a more peripheral role these days, coming off the bench as some sort of footballing Yoda. Just give him a properly structured team of hard-working lunatics prepared to do all his running, as Argentina have so successfully demonstrated.
Picture him taking Fermin Lopez or Dani Olmo’s place, with Rodri and Pedri pulling the strings behind him and the likes of Anthony Gordon and Raphinha running themselves ragged ahead. The prospect of seeing him combine with his heir Lamine Yamal is almost too good to contemplate.
Ticking off the last few records in Europe
Consider this one a sub-clause of the above.
Messi surely won’t be returning to Europe, but if he did we’d get the bonus of him closing in on a few records and milestones he left unticked.
Four more goals and he’d get to a nice, even 500 goals in Europe’s major leagues. And if you include Cristiano Ronaldo’s three goals in Portugal’s Primeira Liga (not quite a ‘top five’ league), he’s three goals off being the all-time top goalscorer across all of the European leagues.
He’s also just three assists off being the all-time top assist-provider in Champions League history.
We very much doubt any of this keeps him up at night, but those last few records would add a neat little bow to his unparalleled legacy in Europe.
A proper goodbye to Barcelona
Despite what we’ve written above, we’ve made our peace with the fact that we (almost certainly) won’t be seeing Messi in Barcelona’s colours ever again.
But we couldn’t help but look at his emotional goodbye at a packed-out Monumental in Buenos Aires and feel that he deserves something similar at the Camp Nou.
After all he’d done for Barcelona, Messi’s departure felt horribly anticlimactic. A final season without fans, followed by an awkward, tearful press conference to announce an exit he never wanted. Not the send-off he deserved.
There’s still time to put that right. A Joan Gamper trophy match between Inter Miami and Barcelona? An exhibition match featuring his legendary ex team-mates? Something, anything. Make it happen.
Play in the Copa Libertadores
“He played in every possible final, but he’s missing the Libertadores,” CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez said of the prospect of seeing Messi in South America’s biggest club trophy.
“There’s nothing that compares to it. It’s unique, and it’s something he deserves to play in. If I were a club president, I would do everything possible to bring him in.”
Again. We can’t see it. But it’d be cool to see Messi wind down his career in the blood and thunder of Libertadores football. It feels like a South American rite of passage.
An Olimpico Goal
Messi’s come close on several occasions, but he’s still somehow never scored directly from a corner.
It’s just about the only goal missing from his collection.
You still see him trying it, and we wouldn’t be surprised if he manages it and catches out a hapless MLS goalkeeper before he finally hangs up his boots.
Puskas Award
An Olimpico goal feels realistic enough. A Puskas Award at this stage of his career? Admittedly a bit of a stretch. But this piece is all about wishful thinking, so indulge us.
Given what we’ve witnessed from Messi in the last few months, both for his club and country, he probably still has it in his locker to pull out one more absolutely outrageous goal.
He could make it onto one more Puskas shortlist, and from there there’s a public vote element. Mohamed Salah’s relatively ordinary Merseyside derby goal won it back in 2018. Never say never.
Win the CONCACAF Champions Cup
We’re left a little unmoved by Messi’s Inter Miami exploits at this stage, to be completely honest.
He’s already won a Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup and broken all kinds of records. He’s lived up to his much-hyped billing and has nothing left to prove.
But it would be cool to see him get his hands on one of only two trophies that he’s never won, North America’s cross-continental equivalent to the Champions League. They made it to the semi-finals, losing to the Vancouver Whitecaps, in 2015.
One that definitely feels achievable.
Free-Kick Record
Three more free-kick goals needed.
This one’s surely in the bag. Right?
1000 goals
Ronaldo has made no secret of his burning desire to reach a thousand career goals. At times, it feels like the milestone has become an all-consuming obsession.
Messi, meanwhile, doesn’t seem remotely bothered. Which is precisely why we’d find it so funny if he got there too. Imagine Ronaldo’s face.
Another 68 goals to go, as things stand.
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