Messi misses Barça as membership marks anniversary

Inter Miami ahead Lionel Messi has mentioned he misses Barcelona as a part of an interview to mark the club’s 125th anniversary on Friday.

Messi first joined Barça as a young person in 2000 and spent 21 years on the membership, occurring to change into the all-time main look maker and aim scorer with 672 targets in 778 video games.

“Congratulations to Barça on their one hundred and twenty fifth anniversary,” Messi said in an interview with TV3 which aired to coincide with the day the Swiss-born Joan Gamper based the membership at a gymnasium within the metropolis 1899.

“It is an honour to be a part of the membership, to be a Barça fan. I’m fortunate that God led me there and I used to be capable of spend most of my life at such a beautiful membership.

“It is a particular membership, completely different to the remainder, with the difficulties that poses in the meanwhile, given how issues are managed in soccer as of late.

“They modified every little thing and as we speak the membership is represented in the best way we wish. We like the primary group, we’re vastly proud [to see the youngsters there].

“I miss the membership lots, town, the folks, the love … And, as at all times, I hope issues maintain going effectively and we are able to maintain making this nice membership even larger.”

Since their founding 125 years in the past, Barça have received a combined total of 36 LaLiga and Liga F titles and eight UEFA Champions League crowns throughout their males’s and ladies’s groups.

Messi was a part of 10 of these LaLiga titles and 4 Champions League successes earlier than leaving for Paris Saint-Germain in 2021.

The 37-year-old named 2009 — when Barça received LaLiga, the Champions League, Copa del Rey, UEFA Tremendous Cup, Spanish Supercopa and the Membership World Cup — as his spotlight on the membership.

“The yr we received the six trophies,” Messi mentioned when requested for his greatest second. “You take pleasure in day-after-day, coaching, video games … going out to play and understanding how the video games would finish.

“We had a lot confidence that we had been going to win. It was a yr I actually loved and I feel everybody else did, too.”

Barça will mark their anniversary with a particular gala on the Gran Teatre del Liceu, simply off La Rambla within the metropolis, on Friday. Round 2,000 folks have been invited to the occasion, many with hyperlinks to the membership’s storied previous.

First group coach Hansi Flick and his gamers can be amongst these current. The German supervisor, who took cost in the summertime, says he can already see the rationale Barça’s motto is ‘Més que un membership’ (Greater than a membership).

“This membership is wonderful, it is actually unbelievable,” Flick mentioned in a information convention on Friday.

“Since I arrived I mentioned it, it has impressed me lots all of the issues right here. Now, some days later, my teaching workers, we are able to actually work in freedom, they do every little thing what we want. It is a actually good state of affairs.

“All of the followers, after I stroll by way of the road, it is wonderful how they converse with me, how they’re very form about us, about my group, my colleagues and me. It is actually a pleasure to be right here, to work for this membership. And it is greater than a membership, sure, I can say that.

“It is a huge honour to be a Barça coach. I do know very well the historical past of this wonderful membership. We can be on the celebration as we speak, additionally the gamers are there, and we are able to get a sense about that.”