Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi opened up about some of the most talked-about incidents of his life in a recent interview with the Catalan radio channel RAC1 on Tuesday.
Speaking about his arch-rival Cristiano Ronaldo, the Argentine international admitted missing the Portuguese superstar in La Liga. “I wanted him to continue with Real Madrid. He gave a plus to the rivalry in the Clasico and La Liga,” the five-time Ballon d’Or winner said.
The 32-year-old also shed light on what went wrong in Neymar’s possible return to the Catalan club this summer. The Brazilian had left for Paris Saint Germain, rather hastily, in 2017 and Messi did not shy away from accepting that the fans were hurt by the development.
“Although many people seem to think I’m in charge of signing players and sacking coaches, I wasn’t involved. I spoke to Ney and got the impression he wanted to come back,” clarified Messi.
Meanwhile, it was also believed that the defending La Liga champions did not want to associate with the 27-year-old especially after acquiring the service of French superstar Antoine Griezmann in the last transfer window.
After the World Cup-winner was signed, speculations had grown wild that Messi was left unhappy with Griezmann’s signing as many believed the Argentine captain wanted his old friend in the team.
However, Messi cleared the air and denied all the rumours doing the rounds about any rift between him and Grienzmann.
“It’s not true that I didn’t want Griezmann to come. It has never been a problem from my point of view,” the 2014 FIFA World Cup Golden Ball winner said in his latest interview.
Further into the interview, Messi cracked open into some of the worst times and fears. He did not shy away from admitting that at one point in his career he had thought of leaving Spain.
“There have been times when I have ended up tired due to a lot of circumstances. There were several times, especially in 2013 and 2014, when I had the problem with the treasury,” Messi said.
“The best thing of all was that my children were small and didn’t know anything, but we had a bad time. At that time I had it in my mind to leave, not because I wanted to leave Barca, but because of what was going on,” he added.