The hole left by Messi is a vast one, as the six-time Ballon d’Or scored 672 goals and provided 305 assists in 778 games for Barcelona.
The club’s financial situation made Messi’s stay more difficult
Ronald Koeman has admitted that, despite the difficulties between Lionel Messi, Barcelona and LaLiga, he was still surprised when he saw the Argentine leave the club. The hole left by Messi is a vast one, as the six-time Ballon d’Or scored 672 goals and provided 305 assists in 778 games for Barcelona. “I knew there was a difficult situation between the club and Leo Messi and LaLiga to have the possibilities to keep Messi at the club,” Koeman said in an interview with ESPN. “It takes a long time, but I was also surprised by the day and the moment that I heard that he was finished playing for Barcelona. And I knew the financial situation of the club made it more difficult.”
According to Koeman, Messi is the best player in the world
“I think it was difficult because we are not just talking about any player. We are talking about Leo Messi, the best player in the world through many seasons, and we were all disappointed that he will not play for us this season. But OK, you have to change fast because you don’t stay in the disappointment with the new season starting. You have to understand it was for a few days a difficult situation. Messi meant so much for this club.” Barcelona now have to look towards the future, with the likes of Memphis Depay, Eric Garcia and Emerson Royal joining a squad that has a fair number of promising players, including Pedri, Ansu Fati and Ronald Araujo.
“We have to understand that there is always an end for a player. You have to close the book because now we have to focus on this new season,” Koeman explained. “We have new players in, and we have to move forward, and we have time for that. We have young players in the squad this season, and it’s also for the future, we are working on the future of this club, and it’s essential to have our focus on this and not focus on what happened in the last few days.”