Leo Messi is honest about his departure from Barcelona: “I was left with a strange feeling, I didn’t leave as I imagined” | Football | Sport

“I had a strange feeling after leaving, with how all things went, with how I ended up playing my last years without people, because of the pandemic. I didn’t leave as I imagined, as I dreamed,” Leo Messi is honest about his departure from Barcelona in August 2021 in a newspaper interview Sport. After 20 years at the club, he left in tears, something he has not forgotten. His desire, he explains, was to continue playing “his entire” career in Europe, and at Barcelona. The farewell, he recalls, “was a bit strange”. “For the situation, for everything. But I believe that the affection of the people will always be there”, he adds, grateful for the affection that the Barça fans still show him. “Maybe I enjoy it more now than when things were happening because of the daily dynamics,” he confesses; “History is never forgotten and not only with me, but with all the people who have passed through the club.” And Leo adds: “I keep everything I experienced in that period, everything I grew as a person, as a player”.

Messi doesn’t forget that he couldn’t say goodbye to Camp Nou. “I really want to return to the stadium when it’s finished because since I went to Paris I haven’t even returned to the Camp Nou and then they went to Montjuïc. It will be very strange to return to the new stadium (…) and it will be very exciting”, he explains in the interview conducted in Miami a couple of weeks ago. Barça president Joan Laporta has already declared on several occasions that he intends to organize a tribute to Leo Messi once the Camp Nou is over if he continues to lead the club, since before that, between 15 March and 15 June 2026, elections will have to be held. “I really want to go there, we miss Barcelona a lot, the children and my wife always talk about Barcelona, ​​​​about the idea of ​​living there again,” he adds. And in a fit of nostalgia and affection, Messi kept his words, if only for a day.

This Sunday, while the Blaugrana were watching their club’s match in Vigo, Messi returned to the Camp Nou at night, secretly, behind Laporta’s back. Hours later, on Monday morning, he posted a series of photographs on Instagram from the furtive visit to the stadium under construction. Him send He already has more than 22 million likes, more than the publication of his farewell to Barcelona or his presentation to PSG.

He ended up at the Parisian club after leaving Barcelona until 2023. “It seems like Paris was hell and it wasn’t even like that. When I say I didn’t have fun it’s because I didn’t feel good with what I did and what I like to do, playing football, from day to day, from training, from matches, but because I didn’t feel good,” confesses Leo. He later went to Miami. “We enjoy the city, day by day. As I just told you, it’s a life very similar to the one I lived in Castelldefels, with the club nearby, the children’s school also very close, everything within reach, comfortable,” explains the 10.

At Inter Miami he experienced the retirement announcements of Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, players who accompanied him for most of his career. “On the pitch, as long as I can and I feel good physically, I will continue to do it the same way, trying to compete, win and always give my best. The moment I see that I’m not physically there, that it’s difficult for me on the pitch or I’m not enjoying myself, it will be time to call it a day,” says Messi. And before that moment Messi will want to close the wound of the farewell that he did not have as a Barcelona player at home: the Camp Nou.