Mercato – PSG: This announcement on the interest of Guardiola for Lionel Messi! – The 10 Sport

Posted on September 29, 2021 at 7:45 am by La Rédaction

While Lionel Messi finally left FC Barcelona for PSG, Manchester City has long been heralded as a possible destination for the Argentinian, in particular thanks to Pep Guardiola.

As his contract expired on June 30, Lionel Messi negotiated for several weeks with the FC Barcelona. For lack of money, Joan laporta was ultimately unable to sign a new contract at the six-time Ballon d’Or. A thunderclap on the planet of football. Thereafter, it is the PSG who managed to get it to sign freely and for free. Corn Manchester city was not far away. Reunion between Pep guardiola and Messi have often been announced, this ultimately was not the case.

“Messi changed his mind and wanted to stay at Barça”

In words granted to Eurosport, David Mooney, English journalist, reconsidered the interest of Manchester city for Lionel Messi. And on this subject, he confided: ” As soon as Guardiola arrived they tried to sign him and always had a concrete interest in him. (…) The election of Laporta changed a lot of things. Messi changed his mind and wanted to stay at Barça. So City leaders were obviously cold. They necessarily kept in touch but they also moved forward on other tracks since they expected to see him stay. When Messi ended up being free, there was a real gap that City did not seek to fill. It was too late for that to happen. Last summer they came really very close to extracting him from Barcelona, ​​without success. This summer, the board simply admitted they couldn’t afford to go through the same thing again, especially without guarantees. Especially since Messi was more in the idea of ​​staying in Barcelona, ​​so City prioritized Harry Kane instead “.