Messi's scathing assessment of Barcelona transfer target
Martin Macdonald
- 3 Feb 2022 10:59 CST
- 3 min read
Barcelona are set to turn down the opportunity to bring former La Masia graduate Xavi Simons back to the club this summer.
Simons joined Barcelona's famed youth academy La Masia at the age of seven from previous club CD Thader.
He worked through the ranks of the youth system but never actually made a first team debut for the Catalan side after a contract dispute.
Simons would eventually leave for PSG in controversial fashion as a free agent 16-year-old.
Unfortunately for Barca, they allowed a few youngsters of potentially wonderful talent to slip through their fingers, such as Ilaix Moriba in 2021 as an example.
It proved to be a sour departure for Simons as he ultimately left for PSG as the French giants offered him a salary of €1 million per year, while Barca were offering €200k per year.
That amount still would have made him the highest paid youth player in the history of Barcelona at the time.
Back in 2018, Xavi lamented players leaving Barcelona before fully learning their trade, saying:
"Many times, people with 15, 16, 17 years, they are in a hurry. It took [Andres] Iniesta and I three or four years, but now there is no patience. There is too much economic priority over football."
No Barcelona return for Xavi Simons
Unfortunately for Simons, even though he is a young millionaire, his career has stagnated at PSG and is no longer rated highly by the French giants.
It took the young Dutchman until February of 2021 to make his debut for PSG which came in a Coupe de France win over Caen, while he would make his Ligue 1 debut a couple of months later.
He became the antagonist in one of the shock matches of the 2021/22 season in France as it was his missed penalty that saw PSG eliminated from the Coupe de France by Nice at the end of January.
At PSG now is, of course, Lionel Messi, who made the free transfer switch from Camp Nou in the summer.
Messi recently met with Xavi in a celebration for the latter's birthday, and according to Catalan publication El Nacional, the subject of Simons was raised.
Simons' contract expired in the summer of 2022 and PSG are not overly concerned about a renewal.
Links with Barcelona soon emerged, but the report from El Nacional states that Messi actually advised Xavi not to allow Simons to return.
According to the Argentine, the same lack of humility that clouded Simons' time at Barcelona has not went away.
