Lionel Messi’s complaint last year that his former Paris football club did not celebrate his victory at the 2022 World Cup continued to irk the team president.
Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi shared his feelings with French website RMC Sport, calling out the Argentine soccer star for a lack of “respect” over his comments last September.
“He’s not a bad guy, but I don’t like it,” Al-Khelaifi told the newspaper. “I will say, not only for him, but for everyone, we talk when we’re there, not when we’re not there. That’s not our style… I have a lot of respect for [Messi] but if someone wants to talk bad about Paris Saint-Germain after that, that’s not good. It’s not respect.” Messi, 36, told ESPN last fall that he resented his former club Paris Saint-Germain for not celebrating the World Cup victory – when Argentina beat France 4-2 – when he returned to the team’s club level.
All 24 of Messi’s Argentina team-mates received some sort of honor from their teams at club level when they returned from the international tournament. However, Messi, who scored two goals in the final and was declared the best player of the tournament, did not receive the award.
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Lionel Messi.
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The main factor why Messi was not recognized, Al-Khelaifi said, was that Argentina defeated France. The French team was led by Kylian Mbappe, the face of the Paris Saint-Germain team and Messi’s teammate.
“If anyone is talking about how we didn’t celebrate him enough after he won the World Cup, we are in France and he beat Kylian,” Al-Khelaifi said. “We are a French club. I don’t want the whole stadium to be against him either.”
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That pleased Messi, who told ESPN that “it was understandable” that Paris Saint-Germain didn’t celebrate his World Cup victory because it meant celebrating France’s defeat. However, he still lamented: “I was the only player out of 25 who didn’t get an a [club] recognition.”
“I will say one thing about Messi, the best player in the world and the best player in history,” Al-Khelaifi said. “It was not easy for him to come here… After Barcelona. There [in Barcelona], everything was for Messi: players, coaches, and management. He comes here and it’s not the same thing, we have other players, we have Kylian and also Neymar.”
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From left: Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi.
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Messi reportedly had trouble adjusting to life in Paris, especially in the Paris Saint-Germain super team that included some of the best players in the world, such as France’s Mbappe and Brazilian star Neymar Jr.
He first joined the Paris team after 21 years at Barcelona, where he was the long-time captain of the famous Spanish football club and the all-time top scorer. After two turbulent years with Paris Saint-Germain, Messi decided to leave the team in June when his contract expired.
Messi then joined Major League Soccer to play for Inter Miami – a move that made him and soccer the main attraction in American sports over the summer. He is under contract to play for Miami through December 2025, according to ESPN. “I love what I do, I enjoy playing, and now it’s a different way,” Messi said last September. “That’s why I decided to come to Miami and not continue my career elsewhere: you experience it in a different way.”
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Source: HIS Education