Lionel Scaloni is not giving up hope of keeping Lionel Messi with the Argentina national team longer. The superstar was pretty clear about his future this week, but then backtracked a bit.
National coach Scaloni responds to Messi’s World Cup statements
Messi is staying with the national team in China and during an interview he was asked whether he will play at the 2026 World Cup. “I don’t think so, Qatar was my last World Cup,” Messi spoke out for the first time about his football future. “We’ll see how it goes, but in principle I’m not going to the next World Cup.”
Scaloni doesn’t want to think about 2026 at all. “The reality is that Messi is going to see how he is doing. So much football is still being played before the World Cup, it makes no sense to think about it further,” said the coach who made Argentina world champion in Qatar. “When these busy months are over, we’ll see how Messi feels. That’s the most important thing, that he keeps looking forward to it.”
Still, Scaloni weighs Messi’s words: “His statements are still cautious. They are statements from a player who doesn’t sell hot air. There is no other Messi in this world, he is not going anywhere for a while.” Messi will soon make a transfer to America. Scaloni also reacted to the move to Inter Miami: “I’m glad he’s decided to go to a club and city that will treat him great. We all want him to be happy.”
Strange farewell to Barcelona still bothers Messi
Lionel Messi is still disappointed with the way he left Barcelona. In the summer of 2021, he abruptly said goodbye to the club where he played almost all his life.
In an interview with Mundo Deportivo and SPORT, Messi says he is jealous of the farewell of other Barça icons. “I would have liked to say goodbye like Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, or like Xavi and Iniesta at the time. I would have liked to leave like that, to say goodbye to the people. Even though it was the time of the pandemic and there couldn’t be people in the stadium,” he said.
Messi looks back with little satisfaction on the period in which he exchanged Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain. “It was a very unpleasant time. We arrived in Barcelona thinking of every year, to go back to training, the kids back to their schools and their routines. When everything was ready to sign a new contract, it couldn’t be done overnight and they told me I had to leave the club. I suddenly had to leave and look for another team, make a decision quickly and go through everything we’ve been through, which was hard,” Messi concluded.
