It's a peculiar situation because Laporta doesnt want to be known/remembered as the presi who let Messi go so this possible return means a lot to him on that level. On the other hand, he and the entire staff naturally want to have a team capable of competing in CL next season.

Those two things dont exactly cancel out each other, but Messi at the age of 35/36 seems like a luxury signing. It depends on what other movements will happen this summer, but we still need a top class DM and RB. Another striker to rotate with Lewa as well, ideally..

The club is working on 2/3 exits this week too. Wonder who those are. Kessie/Ansu/Ferran? Who knows.

The starting XI should be fine, but depth will still be lacking. It's hard not to be happy about Messi coming back, but on the other hand we were supposed to be starting our new era, but we're still stuck in the past.

It's literally one season, two at most. You're not competing in the CL next season, bud. Even 'Teta's Gunners would wipe the floor with you.

El Gunner wrote:It's literally one season, two at most. You're not competing in the CL next season, bud. Even 'Teta's Gunners would wipe the floor with you.

You wish

Couldnt even beat Sporting brudda. It's very likely we'll end up in the same group so we'll see lol

I heard Laporte say only THREE incoming players; Messi, Gundogan and Iñigo Martinez (lol all senior!). Rest of moves are to try to resolve financial balance! Bottom line, no bench strength!

But with the possibility of UEFA suspension, maybe it doesn’t matter.

with that set up i think that's good enough defense to try and make a CL run Pedri can also play in Dembele's position and then Balde at LWB if you want more effort

futbol_bill wrote:I heard Laporte say only THREE incoming players; Messi, Gundogan and Iñigo Martinez (lol all senior!). Rest of moves are to try to resolve financial balance! Bottom line, no bench strength!

But with the possibility of UEFA suspension, maybe it doesn’t matter.

Laporta said none of that. They also have Carrasco on standby, and heavy interest in Cancelo/Zubimendi and others so they're definitely planning for more than 3 incomings.

There's pessimism around Messi today though, looks like it might not happen after all (part of me is relieved tbh)

Inigo should be announced today, so he can be registered without any departures it seems

La Liga officially green lighted Barca's viability plan so they can now send an official offer to Mehssi. We'll see.

Gundogan seems done, probably announced after the CL final. City will probably push for him to stay though

Reports that he's set to join Inter Miami. I doubt he'll be loaned to Barca though

Great news for you guys. Trust Xavi and continue his rebuild process.

That loan was discussed as for 6 months with a possible one year extension. The 6 months would not effect his playing time with Miami!

Basically, it’s easy money for Miami, Laporte gets his wish for positive news, and at a price be can afford, and gets to give Messi a proper sendoff. And has been discussed here, this isn’t for futbol reasons so the 12 month extension was never in the cards.

Myesyats wrote:Reports that he's set to join Inter Miami. I doubt he'll be loaned to Barca though

Barca were begging Messi to come, even got Tebas to look the other way and he's still not joining. Going to a club that was formed 3 years ago. Must be difficult....

Can you blame him? Players like Kounde and Lewa joined without guarantees that they'll be registered on time.. Laporta already fucked over Messi once, and today they can send him an offer but still can't provide 100% guarantees which is a dealbreaker. The relationship is strained if not broken, and there's very little trust. Messi and his camp want to be 100% sure and currently everything at Barca is hanging by a thread

This is a win-win though, we can move on with the Xavibola project, the team will not be unbalanced and Messi will have a nice stay in Miami far away from Saudi and CR

halamadrid2 wrote:

Myesyats wrote:Reports that he's set to join Inter Miami. I doubt he'll be loaned to Barca though

Barca were begging Messi to come, even got Tebas to look the other way and he's still not joining. Going to a club that was formed 3 years ago. Must be difficult....

According to his dad Messi was willing to play for free, but Barca couldn't guarantee that they would be able to register him.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

halamadrid2 wrote:

Myesyats wrote:Reports that he's set to join Inter Miami. I doubt he'll be loaned to Barca though

Barca were begging Messi to come, even got Tebas to look the other way and he's still not joining. Going to a club that was formed 3 years ago. Must be difficult....

According to his dad Messi was willing to play for free, but Barca couldn't guarantee that they would be able to register him.

I have heard that line many times. Happened everytime Ramos was negotiating a contract, was going round saying he'd play for free while grabbing the club by the balls. Messi would never have played for free lol. He didn't dry out your banks out of the goodness of his heart, there likely would have been thousands of strings attached.

We need Inter Miami crest!

Harmonica wrote:We need Inter Miami crest!

can't wait for the Inter Miami gifs in the Messi thread, Harmonica

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

halamadrid2 wrote:

Myesyats wrote:Reports that he's set to join Inter Miami. I doubt he'll be loaned to Barca though

Barca were begging Messi to come, even got Tebas to look the other way and he's still not joining. Going to a club that was formed 3 years ago. Must be difficult....

According to his dad Messi was willing to play for free, but Barca couldn't guarantee that they would be able to register him.

The notion of either Jorge or Lionel Messi working for free or even taking the slightest pay cut is patently absurd They were always going to choose the best financial package and the Miami deal with its non-MLS financial incentives might turn out to be more lucrative than the Saudi offer.

Barça were never really in the race tbh.

He gets the best of both worlds by Messi's standpoint = gets paid an absurd amount of money when factoring in non-MLS incentives and stays highly marketable.  Saudi move would have eroded his marketability.

And the "not being able to register Messi" excuse is an explanation worthy of the current US government when talking to the American people.

I'm not sure, the Saudi one was very hard to beat... but you and your family have to live in Saudi, with its very different culture, whereas Miami has a huge Argentine expat community and he would feel more at home.

And yeah, if I were Messi, I would've played for a reasonable fee at a top club able to win the Prem/Serie A just to add to my legend. It feels too soon for him to "retire" early.

BC... he doesn't move anymore.  Like at all.  And he's lost a substantial amount of pace.  He can show up for a month here and there... but he just can't sustain anything.  He's still fantastic with ball at feet and in tight spaces... but that's it.  

Forget the stats at PSG.  From a movement and defensive standpoint, his side of the pitch was just abused all the time by not so great teams frankly.   He couldn't even play for Pep now... he'd still need to move some.

MLS level is so much lower that he'll dominate.   There's very little quality.  I'd say the level is 2nd or 3rd division in the top 5 leagues in Europe.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:
And yeah, if I were Messi, I would've played for a reasonable fee at a top club able to win the Prem/Serie A just to add to my legend. It feels too soon for him to "retire" early.

i think he is just saturated personally, thinking about his family now.

Myesyats wrote:Can you blame him? Players like Kounde and Lewa joined without guarantees that they'll be registered on time.. Laporta already fucked over Messi once, and today they can send him an offer but still can't provide 100% guarantees which is a dealbreaker. The relationship is strained if not broken, and there's very little trust. Messi and his camp want to be 100% sure and currently everything at Barca is hanging by a thread

This is a win-win though, we can move on with the Xavibola project, the team will not be unbalanced and Messi will have a nice stay in Miami far away from Saudi and CR

Laporte fucked Messi over ????? Because he couldn’t find a way to accommodate Messi horrendous salary???

It’s actually other way around. Messi fucked the Barca organization with his annual black mail demands for increased salary, so much so that Messi’s salary alone exceeded 70% of club’s income, and leaving literally nothing in club’s capacity for rest of squad!

Why you guys keep ignore his selfishness greed is beyond me.

In any event, the loan deal was a discussion between Beckham’s folks and Laporte and would not have been announced as part of the deal reached today. I suspect it still may happen, but it will just be for 6 months if it does happen.

What selfishness?

Messi and Barca agreed terms for ~23m euros. Not free, but certainly way below market for him and not a ridiculous or greedy amount.

The problem is that due to La Liga's agreement with Barca, Barca can't increase spending by more than 40% of income. So to free up that 23m they need to decrease existing salaries by 60m. That means selling a number of players.

So Barca told Messi something like "Hey we want to make this work, but we need the entire summer to offload players, and even then we can't guarantee we'll be able to sell enough" to which he responded something like "Not this shit again, screw it".

I don't think anyone screwed anyone over. It's just that Barca are not in a good financial spot right now. Clearly getting Messi would have been a win for Laporta, as he would bring in way more than 23m for us.

And why do you think Barca are in the financial shape they are? It is a bit of incompetence management and lot of Messi’s greed for annual blackmail demand for increased salary. Him and family and fanboys saying he was screwed by Barca is hypocritical!