The Champions League, an obsession for PSG and a wound to Lionel Messi’s pride

For PSG it is an obsession; for Leone Messi, a hole deep in his pride. Leo knows what’s inside Champions League where he has to pay his Parisian debts. Because it is, even if it sounds unfair. Paris has not yet seen the heavenly Messi who knows the planet and will not be in Ligue 1, where the fans surrender at his feet, no matter how many goals and magic you deploy locally.

Also, wounded pride has older scars. Messi hasn’t won the Champions League since 2015 and after reaching it Big ears (fourth in his career) suffered some of the most surprising hits: Roma’s comeback in 2018 (1-4 to 3-0), Liverpool’s 2019 (0-3 to 4-0) and humiliating 8-2 that Bayern Munich gave him in 2020.

A ultra competitive spirit Like Messi’s, it focuses much more on the Champions League than Paris Saint-Germain has never achieved than on Liga 1 which has won ten times. But there is a asterisk: in between there will be a bigger obsession and with the addition that it could be his last chance, the world.

The calendar of this 2022 is decoupled from the Qatar adventure and the sixth day of the Champions League group stage will be played twenty days before Argentina’s debut at the World Cup. And the round of 16 will start only in February 2023. How this closeness of dates can affect the minds of the players, no one knows, but It would be an unexpected failure if PSG did not make it through the first round.

With confirmed rivals, curiosities arise. Juventus was the finalist that Messi and Barcelona defeated in 2015, in the final played in Berlin, the last photo of Leo with the Big ears in the hands. Juve were also one of the subsequent executioners, in the 2017 quarter-finals. Benfica are not mentioned in recent historical data, but offer a coincidence that could annoy the superstitious: the Da Luz stadium, owned by Otamendi and Enzo Fernández, it was the scene of the unforgettable ball from Bayern Munich to Barcelona and the final lost by PSG, even against the German giant, all in 2020. But that will be another story.