Last Updated on 08/02/2023 by てんしょく飯
It all came out of a conversation between friends: when David Beckham was planning to create a new team in MLS (Major League Soccer) in 2016, Lionel Messi promised him.
If everything goes well, I will play for that team one day.
Seven years later, those words have become reality. Now Messi smiles in the pink uniform of Inter Miami.
When he left Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), Messi burst into tears at a press conference. Messi may have shed a tear or two during this transfer as well. Secretly, when no one was looking.
As everyone knows, Messi really wanted to go to Barcelona. Barcelona is where he has spent most of his life. He has friends. He has a home. His family loves that city. The place Messi truly feels “at home” is not Rosario, his hometown in Argentina, but Barcelona.
In fact, many have been plotting Messi’s return to Barça. Pepe Costa, for example. He was a former Nike man who had been recruited by Barça to join the player’s support staff. Messi especially trusted him and looked up to him like a second father. He hoped that Messi would return to Barça, play as an active player for as long as he wanted, and then remain at Barcelona forever as a team executive.
So why was Messi’s return so unsuccessful?
Messi’s side insists that no formal offer was received from Barcelona until the very end. Barcelona said that they had made an offer, but all they did was ask him, “Will you come back? Messi’s side claims that they “did not receive an official offer from Barcelona until the end of the season. No specifics such as annual salary or detailed conditions were discussed.
In fact, even when rumors began to circulate that Messi was going to Miami, Barcelona did not make a move. In fact, when Messi was rumored to be on his way to Miami, Barcelona did not make a move because they could not promise him the same amount of money that Beckham had offered. Barcelona is still suffering from the same Spanish financial fair play as it was two years ago when Messi went to PSG.
But despite saying they could not afford to pay the high salary for Messi, Barcelona did acquire the highly paid Ilkay Gündoğan. Messi’s father was angered by the news. The rudder was turned sharply toward Miami, saying, “You don’t have enough respect for Messi.
Messi never made it back “home.
Going to PSG was probably the biggest mistake of Messi’s life. In Paris, Messi had nothing but pain. He did not win the Champions League, he was under a lot of pressure, he did not understand French, and in the end, his supporters even protested, telling him to leave. To heal such wounds, he must have needed to return to his “hometown.
In Barcelona, he has his friend Xavi and his supporters who love him. If they had been able to come closer to each other, the result would have been different. In the end, neither Messi nor Barça learned anything from the PSG transfer debacle.
It is the Barcelona supporters who are suffering from this turn of events. Sure, when Messi moved to PSG, there were those who were angry that he had used another club team to take revenge on Barça, but as time went on, their love for Messi won out over their love for him. They had long awaited his return this summer. Now they must feel abandoned. The feelings of the supporters have been completely left behind.
At the Camp Nou, there are statues of the stars of the 1950s, Hungarian Ladislao Kubala and Johan Cruyff. A statue of Messi was also to be erected there. However, the place is now piled high with trash.
Messi, unable to return to his hometown, has instead obtained gold.
Inter Miami owner Jorge Mas has revealed that negotiations had already begun in 2019 when Messi was at Barcelona. Mas, a Cuban-American, knows little about soccer. But he has a great sense of smell, as someone who has been successful in the business world. He wants to use Messi to make the U.S. soccer business bigger.
Therefore, we hear that he instructed them to pay any amount of money to acquire Messi. In fact, Messi’s contract is more like a movie distribution deal than a soccer player contract. In addition to his annual salary and bonuses, he was given a percentage of ticket sales, a percentage of uniform and merchandise sales, a percentage of profits from the increase in “Apple TV” subscribers, and even the right to build a new MLS team.
Living in a mansion in Miami.
Behind Messi’s move, the shadow of Adidas also flitters. Beckham has a long contract with Adidas, and so does Messi. They are looking to hit the U.S., Nike’s home turf, with Messi. The U.S. market is naturally larger than that of Barcelona. Currently, American sports stores are plastered with posters of Messi wearing Adidas shoes.
But in exchange for the big money, Messi seems to have lost the goal he was aiming for: PSG had the big goal of winning the CL, but Inter Miami? Winning the MLS?
I don’t think Messi has anything serious to aim for anymore. Not even the challenge of “developing Japanese soccer” like Zico and Dunga once did in Japan. In addition, Inter Miami is a team that recently won for the first time in three months. In the standings, they are at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
As if to shake off all of this, Messi is living a life of luxury in Miami. Japanese readers may not understand the feeling, but for South Americans, Miami is the place of their dreams. It is not New York or Los Angeles. Living in Miami is a sign of success.
Messi lives in the “Porsche Design Tower,” a 60-story cylindrical building on Sunny Isles Beach that offers 360-degree views. The rooms are 880 square meters, there is a private pool with restaurant service, a residents-only bar, a wine cellar, and even a theater room with new movies.
Best of all, the building has a glass elevator for cars, so you can lift your luxury car up to your room and enjoy the view. Many billionaires have lived here, including basketball player Michael Jordan and boxer Floyd Mayweather. Recently, he has been photographed with his family shopping at a nearby supermarket, but since the supermarket is sponsored by Inter Miami, some say it is a sham.
Messi was on top of the world six months ago, and now he is in the news for scoring a goal in his MLS debut, but I suspect that he will be in the news a little less often in the future. We may be witnessing the end of a king.
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