from Barça to PSG, history and career
MESSI. World champion 2022, Lionel Messi is at the peak of his career. After winning everything with Barça and Argentina, the striker wants to take up one last challenge with PSG.
Did he become the greatest? Everyone is free to evaluate in which stage Lionel Messi is evolving, he who has now won the last iconic trophy that was missing from his list: the soccer World Cup. The Argentine is still at the top, after an 18-year career. Above all, he doesn’t seem satisfied. After a career almost entirely dedicated to FC Barcelona and Argentina, Pulga now animates Paris Saint-Germain’s attack, in a powerful attacking trio alongside Kylian Mbappé and Neymar. With PSG he is trying to take up the challenge of winning a fifth Champions League, he whose international career had its apotheosis in Qatar, planting two goals in the final, as well as a penalty in the penalty shootout. Sacred best player of the World Cup and co-best of the competition, he is now with Paris looking to fill his trophy cabinet a little more.
With Barça, a career full of trophies and goals
Argentinian by birth, Lionel Messi touched his first balls at Grandioli FC, the club where his father trained. Between 1994 and 2000, it was with the formation of Newell’s Old Boys that he continued his training as a footballer and was born, managing to get noticed in Europe. It was FC Barcelona who set their sights on the then 13-year-old. Year after year, he established himself within the Catalan club: Barça junior, Barça C, Barça B… then the great Barça, with which he made his debut on 16 October 2004 during a derby against Espanyol de Barcelona. A real fairy tale then opens: 17 seasons in the Blaugrana, 778 matches, 672 goals, records and titles galore… Messi becomes the idol of the Camp Nou and of the world of football, obsessed by his rivalry with another big of the moment: Cristiano Ronaldo. 10 Spanish championships with Barça, four Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups or seven Copa del Rey, the Spanish Cup… the story is idyllic and allowed him to win six Ballons d’Or in those years, including four consecutive. If he seemed forever linked to Barça, Messi eventually had to change his shirt. In summer 2021, Barcelona can no longer afford Pulga’s salary. The rossoblùs of the Catalan club come out, bye rossoblùs… from Paris Saint-Germain.
One last challenge with PSG
Lionel Messi joins PSG on Tuesday 10 August 2021. This is a major blow for the Parisian club who are entering a new era with the arrival of the Argentine. He finds his place in the game system very quickly and continues the matches, even if he is less decisive than with Barça. However, the attacking trio of Mbappé and Neymar shakes many defences. Arrived with the aim of overturning PSG in the Champions League, he cannot prevent the club from the capital from being eliminated in the round of 16 of the 2021-2022 edition against Real Madrid (2-3, cumulative score).
Upheaval and glory with Argentina
After Maradona, Argentina thus inherited another football genius in the person of Lionel Messi. But with the selection, Pulga’s relationship hasn’t always been good. There have been many encounters in which the striker has not shone and has shown a level of play inferior to his performance with Barça. The contextual differences between the daily life of the club and the international periods have often been felt, even if Messi has always shown a certain efficiency. His ability in front of goal allowed him to score 98 goals against his opponents, setting a record selection. Unhappy finalist of the World Cup in 2014 and three times Copa America, Messi had to wait until 2021 to triumph with the Albiceleste, during the Copa America, before being crowned world champion in 2022. Also of note is a crowning at the Olympics of 2008.
What is Lionel Messi’s salary?
Paris Saint-Germain had to whip out their checkbook to lure the planetary star into their ranks. According to the Spanish journalist Guillem Balague, author of a biography on the Argentine number 10, Lionel Messi would receive 30 million euros net a year at the PSG.
