Matias Messi, brother of Argentine and Barcelona legend Lionel Messi, has taken shots at the Spanish giants as the 40-year-old controversially spoken out about the club’s apparent failure to properly honor the World Cup winner’s legacy at Camp Nou.
During a Twitch stream, Matias stated “I don’t know about you, but Barcelona became known thanks to Messi. Nobody knew about them before. Whoever’s had the chance to go to Barcelona and see the museum, you can see that the museum is Messi.”
🗣️| “I don’t know about you, but Barcelona became known thanks to Messi. Nobody knew about them before.
Whoever’s had the chance to go to Barcelona and see the museum, you can see that the museum is Messi.” #FCBlive
-Matias Messi [Lionel Messi’s brother] pic.twitter.com/T55T9HFTDO
— Football Talk (@FootballTalkHQ) February 8, 2023
“We are not going back and if we do come back, we are going to do a good cleaning, among them, kicking out Joan Laporta… Ungrateful, with everything Messi gave Barcelona”, he added.
It’s true that the 35-year-old iconic figure had an immeasurable impact on the Catalan side in a manner that few footballers have across the history of football on the continent. During his seventeen seasons in the senior team after coming through the club’s vaunted La Masia academy, the Rosario-born forward helped Barça to ten La Liga titles, seven Copa Del Rey trophies, eight Supercopa de España wins, four Champions League winners medals, three UEFA Super Cups, and three Club World Cup wins, which works out to 35 (38%) of the club’s total of 90 combined honors in those competitions across its illustrious history.
Certainly, the notion that four of the five Champions League wins came during the Messi era is an incredible achievement, but that fact cannot ignore the other stars at the club during that same time period, with the likes of Ronaldinho, David Villa, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué, Dani Alves, Carles Puyol, and many others directly contributing to the club’s immense continental success
According to Managing Barça, the campaign manager of club president Joan Laporta – Lluis Carrasco – hit back at Messi after suggestions that Laporta used Messi to gain re-election before opting to not extend the Argentine, which inevitably led to his departure to Paris Saint-Germain.
🚨🎙️| Lluis Carrasco (Joan Laporta’s campaign manager): “Matias, FC Barcelona was big without Messi, but he made it bigger & bigger. What I wonder is what you would be without Barça & your brother. Thanks.”
— Managing Barça (@ManagingBarca) February 8, 2023
Messi once again finds himself amid contract uncertainty with PSG this season, with his terms set to expire at the end of the current 2022-23 Lige 1 campaign. Despite the French giants remaining keen to keep Messi on the books for the near future, former club midfielder and French international Jerome Rothen spoke out at the prospect, warning the club that extending his deal would be a mistake when speaking with RMC Sport.
“Messi’s extension is bullsh*t. Managing the three [Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappe] is complicated. On top of that, there is the wage bill. And we saw that PSG is stuck with financial fair play because the wage bill has exploded. There, you have the opportunity to recover a large sum of money from Messi’s salary. That can allow you to recruit and improve your squad. For all of that, it’s a very bad idea to extend Leo Messi.”
“In terms of image and what he reflects, I do not understand why Leo Messi wants to prolong the adventure. He makes no effort to put the club forward. He never thanks the fans, he lowers his head and goes to the locker room. Even when celebrating his goals, his name is chanted, and he never has a nice gesture toward the supporters to thank them. He does not want to invest more in the project. Because of that, it’s not a good idea to keep him.”
