What's Next for Messi After 8th Ballon d'Or Trophy?
Guillem Balague, the only man to write an authorized Messi biography, joins the show to talk about Messi's short-term and long-term future after dominating the Ballon d'Or vote. Fabrizio Romano will also hit on rumours of a Messi loan deal to Barcelona and the latest transfer news as we inch closer to January.
Transcript
hello and welcome to the debrief live I'm Angus Scott and to be voted the best player on the planet once must be the Pinnacle in anyone's footballing career but what about picking up the trophy for a record eighth time surely proof If any was needed that lonel Messi is the finest footballer that's ever graced the game surely reason in itself to spend a whole episode of a podcast dedicated to the great man so this week we asked the question what next for Lionel Messi well in honor of his greatness we've assembled two journalists at the top of their game and who if there was a Balon door for journalists perhaps a Steelo door then these two might have been battling it out for Years first Ben Jacobs hello Ben I'm not sure about that top 25 for me I think gam is more likely to be contending for the trophy but I would fancy myself for top 25 that's that's not a bad place to be well as Ben has hinted alongside him a journalist who is closer to lonel Messi than any other Gan balag whose official biography Messi the definitive biography the only official one will be the must read for all football and messy lovers in the coming weeks GM great to have you on the debrief hello Angus and Ben and if you introduce every guest like that you seduce them like that you're gonna have them every week you need me next week yes why not but you are well next week you'll be talking about Messi as you probably will be for the next few years or maybe the rest of your career because you're in Miami for soccer X as well yeah uh soccer X which is uh 14th and 15th uh of uh of November so that's what Tuesday Wednesday flying on the Monday and as well as other things like being in a panel with Ben uh I will be also chatting about uh this book I've got in my hands which is uh the updated uh as you said authorized book on uh on Messi you say I'll be talking about Messi in the next few years um it's been a constant since he was what 20 so it's been a it's been a trouble that we've done together and I'm privileged I must say that he's allowed me to tell the story all these years I must be on the sixth ofd of this book uh but it's it's normal I think we published it for the first time when it was 26 27 and since then a lot of things have happened well they have and within the past seven days he's picked up his eighth Balon door which is quite Phenom phenomenal even by his standards yeah I was in Paris and uh I felt a bunch of things one we've we've um I presented commercial events with him for a while seven or eight we've sold everything we've sold we sold phones we've sold um Chevy machines we sold all kinds and throughout the years what I saw is that he was getting more and more comfortable with having to deal with the public um but you had to brief him a lot at the beginning then a little bit less as things progressed in Paris he had his discour ready uh and and I know he prepared it a little bit but prepared it between things because he actually got into Paris atth 8:30 in the morning that same Monday and then we'll fly back past midnight to train the next day in in Miami so it's not that he had a lot of time to prepare it but he seemed so comfortable on that stage he was um allowing his family to be part of that uh scenario and and that what it seemed to many like a like a good buy he was also and this is very very important I feel he was very comfortable talking about the next thing as in um hinting and more than hinting that uh mbappe uh that Holland Jude Bellingham will be the next ones fighting for that trophy now sport psychologist would tell you and and I explore that in detail for instance in the Cristiano Ronaldo biography that there are players that they are in a running machine constantly and the day that the running machine stops that is when they have to retire and disappear from the stage they're not prepared obviously I mentioned Cristiano because I think he's one that is not prepared the day the machine stops he will collapse I feel I always had that impression with Messi I wasn't sure but what I'm seeing is little by little in every decision he takes a step towards the end oh my God it hurts to say that but um but yeah to to or to the next stage if you like it seems quite okay with what's coming gim let's just take a step back to a year ago when Messi wasn't even nominated for the Balon door he'd struggled in that first year at PS SG can you give us some insight at that point as to what was going through his mind in the buildup to the World Cup when obviously everything changed this is interesting Ben because the way the story has been told of Messi for a while was that he was comfortably in Barcelona what would have happened if he had gone somewhere else would he succeed uh and one thing that has to happen for anybody to succeed is that the context is right and quite clearly the first thing that happened was that he said goodbye to Barcelona crying he was hurt by it and he had to tell his kids which was another moment of a private moment of tears and three days later he was in Paris this is not somebody that's chosen The Next Step this is somebody that has had to take the next step without being prepared for it in a way and I remember talking to him the day after he arrived to Paris and and he was very openly saying he was worried about Thiago his oldest son because he remind him of him as in he carries everything inside everything seems to be fine in the outside but it's in the inside where everything uh goes crazy if you like sometimes if the if the context is not right so he was worrying about about Thiago and of course he was worried about himself and with the right reasons so the first thing that happened they moved into an Hotel I I went to the hotel Lovely Hotel but a month and a half in that hotel with three kids that are that love to run around not ideal uh the room was huge as you can imagine a suite of the biggest standards but not great plus he had to travel an hour an hour and a half sometimes to training with a lot of traffic you know what party is like uh and then coming back not great plus he had Co a CO that um was very very hard to recover from even when he had the um the medical uh goahead to train he couldn't breathe properly and he got an injury as well well so all in all he was not an ideal star to his St in Paris but also as he found a house and it seemed like everything was was kind of settling there was that impression that I I told you is this my place in the world and obviously having been in in outside Barcelona by the Sea where they could just go out and enjoy themselves and they knew all the places to go and there are restaurants Argentinian restaurants even that know him very well and his family Etc to a place that he had to discover now it just didn't fully work pochettino got the best out of him I felt in in the system that was used but yeah uh at PSC you know what it's like is is Champions League win or disaster and eventually if Luis hrig had arrived earlier I think he would have a chance to convince Messi to stay but he got to a point um where the the the the roads had to separate and Messi had to move on into the next thing which I'm sure we'll talk about which in theory was going to be Barcelona yeah which is which is interesting gam when you say this because you now you say how how happy he is and how content he seems to be with dealing with people so what do you think has actually been the change has it been he's now a World Cup winner he's got that off his back because he doesn't need an eighth Balon door that's clearly not making happy is it he feels comfortable Miami is this a city that he's that he's happy with or or or can we literally go back to that night in in Doha and he's lifted the trophy and he's thought that's it depending what you're talking about if you're referring to his relationship to the world and to the audience and and in in in public events that has been a process uh a process in which a lot of people around him the closest people to him have tried to help um they they try to tell him how to say things how to approach things uh the intonation a lot of things which he basically has taken on board why is he the best player in the world in history um because he has absorbed through the knowledge of his own football culture the Barcelona football culture uh through losing through competing he absolves all that and the same in in relation to his other side which of course is not the one that enjoys the most but he has to do he realizes that I mean he's on social media Leo Messi if if 10 years ago or five years ago I told you that's this is what he's doing like him well yeah and he's embraced it so he knows this is part of it if you're referring to his professional side as in his footballers side uh is he in a good place does he feel that he's done everything there is a moment when he wins the World Cup where he looks into the stance and he says Yesa Yesa it's done all done now when he wins the World Cup and and he didn't really refer like that's it and now retiring but he was he was actually saying after all the hardship after after all the defeats that's another way you can tell the messy story he was the best but with Argentina he didn't reach that level well after all that time where things weren't going his way finally he got what he wanted the dream that he had perhaps not perhaps bearing towards the end of his career now and this goes with a question of what next for Messi he gets to a point to that point in in in Doan he says that's it but then they start playing with him and his mind is like well this cup America is a time to celebrate isn't it one more year all right let's do that I've got the impression this is this is me and the wish of some family members of Messi that once the cup America is over they go like listen you don't have to go to the qualifies if you don't want to but you are only six seven hours away from Argentina if you want to do the home ones anyway for the next World Cup and then he's only two years but you don't have to come to all the qualifiers Maradona did that at the end and he may have another World Cup in him but that's that's me dreaming yeah we'll come on to the World Cup in a moment Messi's obviously on record as saying it's quite a long way away but he hasn't categorically ruled it out and once we've heard from Fabrizio Romano we'll start to look forward to his future but I want to delve in first GM to the drama around the movie move to into Miami we had PSG postor Cup going from optimistic to pessimistic we had the spin machine of Barcelona putting out all kinds of things but it was more smoke than substance we had Saudi Arabia who at one point had a private jet on standby to whisk him over for the formalities and yet he joins into Miami I know you could write a whole book on that Saga alone but talk us through the context around Messi's move to Miami well you've done it very well uh basically Lu Campos and Jorge Messi uh had should we call it an agreement in principle uh in after meeting in in qat it seemed like everybody was on the same page but then something changed from PSC point of view uh all of a sudden the project was different all of a sudden they wanted to get rid of Neymar they weren't sure about mbappe um the idea was that because of financial financial reasons but also for political reasons they decided to have more French players more players coming through the academy a lot of things that was not exactly what was sold to Jor Messi in those meetings in Qatar so um it got to a point where um Leo Messi goes to Saudi Arabia and he gets fined even though he felt that uh the club had been worn Etc in any case at that at that point it was like now we cannot continue here the fans were against him against neyar and generally against how the club was run so that that finished uh from that point on and different to the move to PSG there was time to think but yes uh you call it the spin machine of of Barcelona Barcelona uh made all the right noises but man men men men or did did none of the gestures that you have to do to bring Messi to Barcelona and many would say cuz Messi didn't want to go no it's actually because Barcelona did not put the conditions at all for Messi to to make his move to Barcelona he would have gone of course he would have gone and as he said when he said goodbye before going to PSG you know they asked him to half his wages he said yes and when he was asked why didn't you have them even more or reduce them even more he said nobody asked me so it was the same here there was a WhatsApp message to hessi with a kind of a look of a of an offer but nothing official nothing that definite which meant that um all right if that's not going to happen what I'm not going to do Leo thought was wait until August to see if things happen and find myself in the same situation that I did find uh just before going to PSG so he had to take a decision the Saud Arabia money was yes available and a jet too but uh basically that was at the time of thinking what do I have to do next uh Leo thought you know what if I reduce my pressure a little little bit but I still can compete at good level and I can do it perhaps closer to home or home being his childhood home because I think home now is Barcelona in his mind but in any case um that with a project that goes beyond football is attracted to that as well all that meant that inter Miami had the um had the upper hand even though two weeks before he actually decided that that was the way to go not even into Miami knew about it so yes yes there had been conversations and everything was put in in place but we still needed Leo to say okay let's do that and eventually that's what he did and even now there's talk of a a lone move to Barcelona in in the new year is is that a load of nonsense and something that actually Lion Messi would would avoid at the moment nonsense and he already said no to it there's no more it's just it's just rubbish it's the typical story uh that happens when uh somebody is in the MLS and others have done it why not now and of course the um with the with a Chinese tour uh it would have been even more difficult now no Chinese tour but it doesn't matter he's probably going to have the longer holidays but not massive not two months month and a half I would say but the longest that he's ever had as a as a player part of that um decompression if you like that that is taking place in his life but still with the ability to um as he suffer with a little bit of couple of injuries while he was at uh at inter Miami it be the possibility of actually recharge batteries and then come back and then and then training the way he trains competing all the time and aiming to take into Miami to the highest position he can we'll discuss what the future is then for lonel Messi further in just a few minutes but a little bit earlier we caught up with the transfer Guru for bro Romano to get his take on all the transfer rumors circulating at the moment but we started by asking him about Messi's record eth bondor win yeah incredible and uh and I think he created something historical during the workup so I think it's it's absolutely normal to see the ballondor in his sense is also it also feels insane to see erling Holland scoring that amount of goals and not having a ballondor so I agree with P Guardiola when he says that they have to do two separate Balon doors because it's incredible to see erling without that but I'm sure that he will win that in the future so I really agree with Le Messi what he said about bppe and Holland it was a really positive message because they will be there for sure and I think Jude Bellingham will also be there in the future well they stand more of a chance with Messi less and less likely I suppose to win it from from now on but another name you mention there Killian mbappe now what is his future um Real Madrid's saying they've made no contact but is there any chance of a a January move or we going to have to wait until the summer no at the moment from what I'm hearing for January there nothing at all that never said ever in football but really in this moment there is nothing at all and I think it's really unlikely because B is only focused on Paris sgain because we still remember in the summer the situation especially in July was really tense between K MPP and Paris sgain then they were able to fix the situation at the end of August that to be now again in a fight between PSG and and mppe something that I don't see possible so they're in a very good moment positive moment at Paris Germain they don't want to change this this story in January so I think Real Madrid release that statement because from what I'm told they know that nothing is going to change now in November in December or in January they know that this bu story is going to be decided in the next months so something like February March April not now and so they didn't want to have a tense situation again between them and PSG or between PSG and MPP they want the situation to be normal because that's the reality today and then to discuss that story in the first months of 2024 for Brio let's move on to Manchester United Jaden Sancho's future is in the air How likely is a January move at this point if you had to put a percentage on it and any further information as to where his next destination may be if he leaves yeah well the destination is not clear yet because I think it will depend on many factors I saw again many rumors about bruo dorm and obviously they really like him but uh I think for many clubs in this moment Mak a crucial moment of the Season they're waiting to decide what they want to do in the generary window so for example for Dortmund is crucial to see see whether they will be again in the Champions League or maybe Europa League or maybe not even in European competition so it's important for them to wait for December before deciding anything on jary signings and same for many other clubs around Europe maybe in Italy in England many clubs are waiting before entering into conrete discussions but to put a percentage I would say that we are close to 99% for Jayden Sancho to leave Manchester United it's it's a really complicated situation nothing is changing I think that 1% left is in case Jayden decides to apologize to speak to the coaching staff to the teammates at carington in a very special way okay in that case this could change but it's almost two months now and nothing has Chang it so the feeling of those internal sources of Manchester United and same those closo player is for jayon sanch to leave in the January win what about Scott Momin with casemiro injured and Momin in good form do you think a January exit is less likely now compared to a few weeks or months ago yes I think for the situation has always been the same for almost one year now for Man United is very clear in case they receive a really important proposal he could be on his way out because he's not attachable for man united but has to be an important proposal they rejected almost 30 million pounds from West Ham in August so they want big money for mcom otherwise they're very happy to keep him to have him as part of the rotation he's very professional very serious he loves the club and so at man united are very happy with him so being un touchable is something different but he's a player that they really appreciate and tag really appreciates so they're not desperate to sell mom and I think he has a chance to stay at the club till the end of the season as you mentioned with casmiro injuries not the best season for him till now so I think they're very relaxed on Momin in case they receive big money that could change but at the moment they are very happy with him and Marcus rashford has called stories linking him with a move away from Old Trafford as quote malicious rumors what can you tell us about rashford's future and the r