Messi at PSG was always going to come good says former Barca teammate
FT Desk
- 18 Sept 2022 14:00 BST
- 3 min read
Lionel Messi has started the season with Paris Saint-Germain with five goals and eight assists from 10 games in all competitions…
Criticism of Messi was pronounced last season after he swapped Barcelona for PSG on a free transfer.
Barca had wanted to keep their talisman, widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, to ever play the game, but their massive debt - which stood at €1.3 billion at the time - meant they couldn't.
15 years ago today, Lionel Messi did THIS 🐐pic.twitter.com/sLrnS12Jdo
— Football Transfers (@Transfersdotcom) April 18, 2022
Messi arrived amid much fanfare, but the player who scored 30 goals in his final La Liga season could only muster six in his first Ligue 1 campaign, and none of those came against French football's bigger guns like Marseille, Lyon or Monaco.
But he has looked like the player of old this season, with three goals and seven assists in the league already, and 13 goal involvements in all competitions coming in at a rate of one every 68 minutes he has played.
Giuly: 'the best player in the world'
"I always knew it'd be difficult for him last season," Ludovic Giuly - who played with Messi at Barcelona between 2004 and 2007 - told French daily newspaper Le Parisien.
"When you were the king of the world in a club, and you arrive overnight in a new country and in another championship; it's never easy, even if you're the best player in the world.
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"It takes time to absorb the change, and we saw that his first year was difficult. But I was convinced that his second season would be good because the great players always question themselves; that's what he did."
Messi's contract at the Parc des Princes expires next summer, and Barcelona coach Xavi - another former Giuly teammate - has spoken of his desire to bring him back to Camp Nou.
"I'd like to think that Messi's time at the club is not over, let alone the way it happened," he said. "I think he deserves a second chance, or another chance, to show that he can leave the club well and that he has been the best player in history."
