The forward landed in Catalonia on 4 August to sign a new contract and then he was gone amid tears and recrimination
Even when it was official, it didn’t seem real. Even when it was repeated, the president standing there saying so, it didn’t ring true. Even after all those warnings, everyone clung to the hope that there might be some solution. Which there was – right before there wasn’t. At about 9pm on 4 August, Lionel Messi and his family landed in Catalonia on a private flight from Ibiza. He came to sign a new contract with Barcelona, all those worries washed away. The next thing they knew, a statement announced that he was leaving.
He had arrived at the club at 13. Now, at 34, having become their everything, he was leaving. No one saw it coming, even if maybe they should have done, and many still didn’t see it then. Messi hadn’t. “We were convinced we were continuing here, at home,” he would eventually say three days later, the delay another reason it felt as if this wasn’t actually happening. The statement was released on 5 August at 7.33pm and soon it was everywhere. “Leo Messi not staying at FC Barcelona,” the headline ran. Wait, what?
