In case the performance of his team last Tuesday at the Parc des Princes once morest Real Madrid (1-0) would not have been enough to make it understood, Leo Messi gave it a layer. In an interview with the club’s magazine just published, the seven-time Ballon d’Or recalls his intention to help Paris win its first Champions League.
“La Pulga”, who took advantage of this interview to express all his “affection and respect” for Ronaldinho, “an extraordinary player” whose “behaviour when my career began” he will not forget, swept away the key moments of his arrival. In particular “the difficult moment” when he set foot on the plane to leave Barcelona and the club where he had “evolved for so many years”. “I also left behind me this city where I lived since I was little, he explains. Somewhere, I had spent my whole life there. It was a strange – and rare – feeling for me to have to leave, also thinking regarding how it all ended. »
Messi ‘excited’ regarding winning the Champions League
But he also confides in it the paradox he went through thanks to this “really exciting situation” of suddenly changing city and life. His first steps in France, as soon as he got off the plane on the tarmac at Le Bourget “will remain, he says, in my memory as marvelous moments. Barely landed in Paris, to see all these people at the airport, at the stadium, it was something really moving. »
He, for whom the change of scenery was total following 21 years spent in Catalonia, ensures that PSG is not so far from other major European clubs. “Paris Saint-Germain has grown enormously over the past ten years,” he notes. The club has a lot of ambition and really wants to keep getting bigger. He has the will and the skills to do it. PSG has nothing to envy to the big historic clubs. If not to climb to the roof of Europe by finally winning the Champions League. Messi assumes it, it is also for this purpose that he joined the ranks of the nine-time champion of France. But “it’s complicated to win the Champions League,” he recalls, insisting that “the slightest mistake can eliminate you. »
Le Parc, a “really special” stadium
“I think we have a team that can try to win it,” he said. We are excited regarding this idea. And we really hope to get there, but we have to take it easy. It’s not always the best team that wins. “With this MNM which, on paper, frightens or excites the whole of Europe, PSG has, Messi knows, a serious trump up its sleeve. “For several months, we have learned to know each other much better, especially in the field, to try to be as efficient as possible, he explains. It’s wonderful to be able to evolve on the field with the best players. I had the chance to play with extraordinary teammates for a long time in Barcelona and now I have the same experience at Paris Saint-Germain. This makes me very happy… and I hope things will continue like this! (He smiles) “
A way of saying, perhaps, in his own way that he feels good in this team in which he does not yet seem to be evolving at full speed. Is it related to its positioning? “In recent years, I’ve been used to playing in the middle, behind the leading striker,” he said. It is in this position of second striker, which I occupied in Barcelona as in the Argentina team, that I feel the most comfortable. Anyway, the number 30 feels good at the Parc des Princes, “a really special stadium” where the supporters “live the experience of the match by singing for 90 minutes”.
“It’s amazing to be able to experience this atmosphere in every game at home. You can feel the fervor of the audience as you perform. (…) And the explosion of noise that follows a goal is simply magnificent, especially in a closed arena like the Parc des Princes! This is why I will never forget the atmosphere that followed my goal once morest Manchester City (2-0, September 28, 2021), my first in the colors of PSG. »
