Greatest football romance awaits: Will Messi reunite with his Barcelona?

But the wheels of destiny tread unusual paths. Two years later, Barcelona wants to reunite. Rumours of his return have been swirling for a while, but this Friday, Barcelona’s vice president Rafa Yuste confirmed that the club are exploring the possibility of re-signing him. Not just because of the value he still brings to the club, but what he stands for. “I would like him to come back, because of what he represents on a sporting, social and economic level. Beautiful stories should have happy endings, and there is a mutual love between the two parties,” he said.

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— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) August 8, 2021

Messi and Barcelona is a beautiful story indeed. A 13-year-old pale boy with wondrous feet but growth-related issues leaving his hometown to Camp Nou because they were the only club that offered to pay for his growth hormone treatment. The first contract was signed on a napkin at a tennis club. The rest of his playing years, Messi seemed like paying the debt back, winning not just a horde of trophies and medals, but forging an identity, making them arguably one of the finest teams ever in the game’s history.

There were others too, Xavi and Iniesta, Puyol and Pique, Guardiola and his vision. But Barcelona, for nearly twenty years when he was there, was Messi, just as Messi was Barcelona. History would remember the team as Messi’s Barcelona, like Pele’s Brazil, though there were other stars that dazzled, so that Pele could dazzle even brighter. It was hard to imagine Barcelona without him, harder to imagine him playing for another club. “It’s difficult,” Messi himself would say.

Lionel Messi and his Argentina teammates show off the FIFA World Cup trophy after their friendly win over Curacao on Tuesday. (Photo: Instagram/@leomessi)

It’s often said that sportsmen die twice, first when they retire. But playing for another club would have been worse than death, for both Messi and Barcelona. Messi, though, did not slow-burn into irrelevance but influenced games as tellingly as used to for Barcelona. PSG was not his retirement shore, but one where he sustained his passion for the game and fuelled his World Cup dreams. If he rejoins Barcelona next season, it would feel like he was merely away for a two-year break somewhere. For a generation of football-watchers, Messi playing for PSG, or any other club, would feel like an alternative reality.

Reunions, thus, have a heart-warming romance about. The interlude of separation might have felt cruel. Messi, himself, might feel it like a rebirth. The non-Barcelona, non-Messi clan could question the rationale. When the next season starts, the Argentine would be 36. His old friend Xavi is moulding a young and vibrant team. Would Messi’s return impede the growth? Would it turn counterproductive after the novelty wears off? There is after all the Ronaldo precedent. His return, it was considered, would make Manchester United great again But the saga unfolded and ended bitterly. In the heart of the United fans, he lost a bit of love and respect.

Lionel Messi is likely to return to Barcelona. (File)

But Messi and Barcelona are different. There are more emotional layers to their relationship. From 13 to 33, through teenage and youth, from foothill of greatness to its peak, it was a journey they journeyed together. “I grew with the values of this club and I want to be recognised that way,” he said in his farewell press conference. Messi would never leave Barcelona as acrimoniously as Ronaldo. Messi has indifferences with the board that led to his departure, but he offered no fodder for sensationalism.

Ronaldo, perhaps, was not as deeply connected to United as Messi was (rather is) connected to Barcelona. It is no fault of his, though. Ronaldo was 17 when he joined United and 24 when he left them. His best years were spent at Real Madrid, where the CR7 myth soared. Before returning to United, he spent three years with Juventus, and he was weighing offers from different clubs before United jumped in, so that he did not end up at Manchester City, who were apparently bidding for him as well. Or so goes the rumour.

A bigger reason that he could succeed could be that Barcelona plays much the same way as they did in Messi’s days. Tiki taka has long gone, but passing is still the soul of the game. He conforms to the fundamental Barcelona way—based on positional play, an urgency to keep the ball for as long as possible.Messi, is still exceptional at these levels, and there is no reason he could not be as influential a force as he always had been.

It’s an engrossing prospect—him pulling the play-making strings beside Gavi and Pedri, behind Ousmane Dembélé and Memphis Depay, shielded by old friend Sergio Busquets and Frenkie de Jong. There might not have been too many peak years left in him. But it does not matter, both Messi and Barcelona would be merely happy to be reunited again. That would be the greatest fairy-tale story ever told in football. A match made in footballing heaven. Barcelona might not have done everything to keep him, but they might do everything to buy him back.