Messi and the unfinished business in South America: “I didn’t play professionally at the Colossus”

Lionel Messi She is the best soccer player on the planet: she just received The Best award from FIFA and she just won the world title with the Argentina national team in Qatar 2022, where she won the MVP award. However, her present at Paris Saint Germain is far from being ideal for the 35-year-old from Rosario. Where will Messi play from June? This is the question that hangs in the air of the football world.

Rosario’s contract with the French club expires in the middle of the year and there is already talk of a possible return to Barcelona; also of a millionaire offer from Saudi football (to wear the Al-Hilal shirt) which Messi has reportedly already refused and as a third option there is a renewal with PSG.

However, there is a glimmer of hope for Leo to end his career as a professional soccer player on South American fields. In Conmebol’s tribute to world champions Argentina on March 27 as part of the draw for the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana in Luque, Paraguay, the president of the body that governs South American football, Alejandro Domínguez, allowed himself to joke with Messi.

Domínguez gave him a stick so that Messi could “lead” world football and also discovered a statue with the figure of Rosario with the Argentina shirt and the World Cup which is already in the Conmebol museum next to one of the Diego Maradona and another by the Brazilian Pele.

In that ceremony, Domínguez reviewed Messi’s titles and told him: “The only cup you are missing is the Libertadores”. The footballer’s nervous smile reveals more of a utopia than a reality, but the president of Conmebol saw the opportunity and took advantage of it.

Now the Argentine has offered an interview on the Bolavip sports website and from the stands of the Parque de los Príncipes he has admitted that he doesn’t know many fields in South America, other than those he had to visit with the national team for the South American qualifiers. The reporter reminded him of the Colossus Marcelo Bielsa and Messi agreed that “professionally” he did not play on the field of Newell’s, the club he is a fan of.

Messi played on the Parque de la Independencia field in June 2011 in a charity match organized by the Pupi Foundation, chaired by Javier Zanetti. There he shared the playing field with great personalities such as Diego Maradona, Juan Román Riquelme and even Lionel Scaloni, the current coach of the national team. But it is true that Messi has never played professionally on the pitch of the club he loved. “In Centrale, yes,” said Rosario instead.

In 2009, he was part of the Argentina national team that lost 3-1 to Brazil at the Gigante de Arroyito for a 2010 World Cup qualifier in South Africa. That time, the manager, Diego Maradona, chose that venue to play against the Brazilians because he understood that the fervor of the public in a stadium whose playing field is very close to the stands could positively influence the performance of his team. But it wasn’t like that.

In anticipation of the interview, they also asked Messi what profession he would have practiced if he hadn’t become a footballer. And La Pulga replied that he always had football in mind. Sergio Ramos, Vitinha, Neymar and Marquinhos also responded in this line to the ping-pong proposed to them by the interviewers.