Guardiola, Messi meet once more as PSG takes on Man Metropolis

September 15, 2021 Paris St Germain’s Lionel Messi in motion REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw

There was a time when a reunion between Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola regarded distinctly attainable, however on Tuesday they are going to be on reverse sides once more when Paris Saint-Germain performs Manchester Metropolis within the Champions League.

Had it not been for Jack Grealish, maybe issues would have turned out otherwise.

Metropolis introduced the £100 million ($139m) signing of Grealish from Aston Villa on August 5, the identical day Barcelona revealed Messi wouldn’t be staying on the Camp Nou.

A 12 months in the past, when Messi tried to pressure his departure from Catalonia, Metropolis appeared the probably vacation spot.

Ultimately, Barcelona prevented the six-time Ballon d’Or winner from leaving then and 12 months later Messi was ready to remain put till it grew to become clear the monetary mess on the Camp Nou meant he couldn’t.

If Metropolis had anticipated Messi turning into out there, they may have moved for him. However as a substitute, they targeted their sights on Grealish and have been attempting to signal Harry Kane, a transfer that finally didn’t occur.

“Proper now it’s not in our ideas,” Guardiola mentioned when requested if Metropolis may transfer for Messi.

It says a lot concerning the trendy sport that PSG was the one different lifelike vacation spot for the 34-year-old who Guardiola has described as the best participant of all time.

Messi has performed simply three video games for his new membership and is but to attain. He has sat out PSG’s final two matches with a knee drawback however the feeling is that Mauricio Pochettino has been saving him for Metropolis.

After being held 1-1 by Membership Brugge of their opening sport, PSG wants a constructive end result towards Metropolis to cease their rivals from taking management of their Champions League group.

On the receiving finish

Messi will fancy opening his account in Paris on such an event, and Guardiola has already been on the receiving finish of the Argentine’s genius in Europe.

After Guardiola left Barcelona in 2012 on the finish of 4 superb years by which he oversaw Messi’s transition from famous person within the making to the perfect on the planet, he confronted his outdated membership for the primary time within the Champions League semi-finals in 2015.

Barcelona beat Guardiola’s Bayern 5-3 on mixture on the best way to profitable the trophy. Messi produced a chic efficiency to attain two late objectives in a 3-0 first-leg win on the Camp Nou that successfully killed the tie.

The one different time the duo have come up towards one another was within the group stage in 2016, simply after Guardiola arrived at Metropolis.

Messi scored a hat-trick as Barca gained 4-0 on the Camp Nou and he then put his facet forward in Manchester, however Metropolis gained 3-1.

This time the expectation is each Metropolis and PSG will progress from their group and each males are determined to win the Champions League once more –- the final of Messi’s 4 titles got here in 2015, whereas Guardiola has not lifted the trophy since Messi impressed Barcelona to a 3-1 win over Manchester United within the 2011 ultimate.

Whereas the world waits to see how Messi’s transfer to Paris seems, Guardiola continues to remorse the absence of a prolific centre-forward as the ultimate piece of his jigsaw at Metropolis.

That was evident on Saturday when, for all their probabilities, they have been restricted to a single purpose by Gabriel Jesus in a 1-0 win at Chelsea.

Previous to that Guardiola had spoken of his remorse at Metropolis’s lack of a “weapon” upfront.

“The membership wants within the subsequent years a striker. When it’s not attainable, it’s not attainable, we transfer on with the unbelievable squad we’ve,” he mentioned.

PSG, after all, has multiple such participant. Kylian Mbappe has been the highest scorer in France in every of the final three seasons.

Messi left Barcelona as its all-time high scorer with 672 objectives in 778 appearances.

His peak on the Camp Nou got here in Guardiola’s ultimate season there, in 2011-12, when he scored an unimaginable 73 objectives.

No person is aware of Messi’s sport higher than Guardiola, however no person is aware of higher than Pep that there isn’t any stopping Messi when he’s on the high of his sport.

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