PSG Club World Cup reunion with Messi recalls unhappier times

ATLANTA: Paris Saint-Germain have come to the Club World Cup as newly crowned champions of Europe, but a meeting with the Inter Miami of Lionel Messi in the last 16 this Sunday brings back memories of unhappier times for the French club.

PSG’s stunning 5-0 demolition of Inter Milan in Munich at the end of last month which allowed them to win the UEFA Champions League for the first time completed an incredible season for the Qatar-backed side under the coaching of Luis Enrique.

It is no coincidence that PSG achieved their crowning glory in their first season after definitively shifting their focus away from signing superstar players to instead allow a brilliant coach to work with a hungry, dynamic young team.

Kylian Mbappe’s move a year ago to Real Madrid followed the departures in 2023 of Neymar, the world’s most expensive signing when he joined in 2017, and Messi, in the same summer Luis Enrique was appointed.

When PSG pounced in August 2021 to sign Messi after a cash-strapped Barcelona were unable to keep him, the French side logically thought the Argentinian could be the man to deliver elusive Champions League glory.

Messi, who was 34 at the time, thought the same thing.

“My dream is to win another Champions League and I think I am in the ideal place to have that chance and to do it,” he said at his unveiling.

Alas, it did not work out that way, either in Messi’s first season in Paris, under compatriot Mauricio Pochettino in 2021/22, or in the next campaign under Christophe Galtier.

PSG had got to the Champions League final and then semifinals in the two seasons prior to Messi’s arrival, so he looked like the final piece in the jigsaw.

Instead they went backwards with him in the side, going out of Europe’s elite club competition in the last 16 two years running.

Having to fit in Messi — with his estimated annual salary of 30 million euros ($35.2 million) after tax — as well as Neymar and Mbappe may have increased the star appeal, but it weakened them as a team.

Towards the end the Barcelona legend was even being jeered by some sections of the PSG support who felt Messi’s commitment to the cause was not what it should have been.

Messi was a PSG player when he inspired Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in late 2022, but there were only flashes of his genius at club level in France.

His statistics stand up to any scrutiny, with 32 goals and 35 assists in 75 appearances, and he did win two Ligue 1 titles while helping increase PSG’s value as a brand.

But one memorable quote by a columnist in French sports daily L’Equipe rather summed things up.

“PSG have not been better than they were before because of him...and he seemed to have as much desire to play in Ligue 1 as he did to go to the dentist,” wrote Vincent Duluc.

Fast forward two years and Messi is enjoying the twilight of his career in Major League Soccer with Inter Miami, the team he has helped to qualify for the knockout stage of this Club World Cup.

Fate has therefore thrown up a last-16 showdown with PSG on Sunday in Atlanta, at the same stadium where he scored a marvellous free-kick to secure a 2-1 win over Porto last week.

“All is not forgiven,” said the front page of L’Equipe in France on Friday as it described the feelings of “failure and bitterness” left behind from the Argentine’s spell there.

Miami coach Javier Mascherano, meanwhile, believes the unhappy memory of his time in Paris could spur Messi on.

“It’s clear that for us it’s better if he plays angry, because he’s one of those players who, when he has something on his mind, gives an extra effort,” Mascherano told ESPN.

With Luis Enrique and PSG boasting big ambitions of adding a world title to their European crown, there would be even more bitterness felt if Messi — days after his 38th birthday — managed to knock them out on Sunday.