Five reasons why Manchester City must not sign Lionel Messi

Pep Guardiola is Manchester City’s coach, but he is also a big fan of FC Barcelona, where he played most of his career. He stated he is incredibly grateful for what Barcelona did for him as a player and coach, and he wishes Lionel Messi to retire at Barcelona.  It’s one of the biggest reasons why the Argentinian legend might stay. And we’ll see some more.

According to Messi himself in an interview with Argentina’s TV station TyC Sports, his children would like to move away from Barcelona. In fact, as Messi recognized, there has been more than one cry at home after he communicated to his children that they would have to pack and change schools. Mateo, Thiago and Ciro don’t want to live anywhere else.

Despite Barcelona fans love him, and most of soccer fans in the world too, some others can be terribly mean. For example, Argentinians. Some people in his country even dare to criticize Messi for not having won the World Cup, despite narrowly missing the title in 2014, among losing the the 2007 Copa América final against Brazil, apart from 2015 and 2016 against Chile. Therefore, he wouldn’t like to have any problem at all with Barcelona’s fans.

Still, he might leave, and PSG is another strong contender. There, he will meet again some old friends like Neymar, who left Barcelona in 2017 after playing for five seasons and signed for the French giants. They narrowly missed UEFA Champions League last year, can they be ready with Messi. His countrymen Angel Di María, Mauro Icardiand Leandro Paredes wait for him too.

Barcelona’s financial situation is far from good, and if Messi leaves, it will be on a free transfer. Then why a player that is valued in almost $100 million would leave his whole life’s club at zero cost? Lots of soccer players from Argentina have shown big gestures of love to their clubs by signing contract extensions with high release clauses to make their clubs earn lots of money before leaving, instead of departing as free agents.