Messi and Ronaldo’s Football Exile: A Missed Opportunity to End their Career on a High Note

The Argentine will play for Inter Miami in the USA in the future. And thus missed a very big chance – his last.

In the end they are somehow reunited. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. For years, the argument about the “GOAT”, the “Greatest Of All Time” (best of all time) smoldered between them. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, it seemed finally over with the triumph of the Argentine. But now both are getting closer again in the last few meters of their great career.

Or would you have believed it if someone told you five years ago that in 2023 Lionel Messi would move to the USA while Cristiano Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia?

What sounds like something out of a bizarre parallel universe is true: Ronaldo has been wearing al-Nassr’s jersey since January – and Messi has now announced that he will play for Inter Miami in Major League Soccer in the future. So there will be no emotional return to FC Barcelona, ​​which the Argentine left in tears for Paris Saint-Germain two years ago.

Like Ronaldo, Messi will now end his great career no longer on the big stage, but in – self-chosen – football exile. It’s a pity. As unassailable as the superstar’s personal decision is – it must hurt every football lover. Messi dwarfs himself into a circus attraction and gambles away his last big chance. He should have known better though.

In retrospect, his move to PSG was a single failure: despite nine goals and six assists in the second half of the season and winning the championship again, his departure was greeted with boos. PSG ‘fans’ apparently never really understood the Argentine’s footballing genius. Messi at PSG, that was ultimately more of an attraction than an ingenious transfer, more of a fun machine than a missing piece of the puzzle, more of a marketing gimmick than substantial reinforcement. It just felt wrong.

It’s going to be worse in Miami now. Within the first few hours of the announcement of the move, the club’s social media following grew exponentially and it didn’t take much imagination to see the shirt printed with ‘Messi’ and – presumably – the number 10 in the team colors black, white and pink becomes a bestseller. And yet it feels wrong.

For football midget Inter Miami, Messi is without a doubt a marketing coup. And according to this logic, the club, which was only founded in 2018, can be expected to play expensive friendlies against willing grandees from Europe. If it wasn’t so sad, you’d have to laugh about it.

All football romance aside, for which a return to Barcelona would have been a picture-postcard ending to Messi’s career, like Ronaldo he has missed the opportunity to bring his career to a proper close. He could have learned from the example of his rival: Ronaldo left Manchester United in a dispute. Where he, as an established elder statesman of football, could have bestowed his wealth of experience on young teammates, the Portuguese behaved like a stubborn teenager, preferring to be lonely in sport and to compensate for the end of his career in the footballing desert with indecent sums.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are role models for millions. Scores of young footballers dream of emulating their game and their successes. When it comes to a worthy conclusion to a great career, they should look for other role models.