First he lied about Messi's return to Barcelona, what Xavi now said about Leo

Lionel Messi was the great protagonist of the last transfer market. La Pulga finished his contract with PSG and became a free agent with the laurels of having been crowned World Cup champion as the tournament's top figure months ago. All the roads pointed to him returning to Barcelona with the pass in his possession, but from Spain he found a betrayal from Joan Laporta and Xavi Hernández, who first expressed the difficulty of incorporating him due to the club's financial situation and then changed the speech to that “the decision was Leo's”.

When the man from Rosario finally decided on Inter Miami, he gave an interview to the Spanish media in which he stated verbatim that he did not like that Barcelona had made him look like “the bad guy in the movie”, but he did not hold any grudges for that way. of acting for the Blaugrana team. In fact, whenever he talks about Barça he describes it as the club of his loves and it is common to see him with a bottle that bears the Catalan team's shield.

Time passed and it became clear that the the Spanish did not have such Fair Play financial problems when they signed important players such as Ilkay Gündogan, Joao Félix or Joao Cancelo. However, although Xavi was not entirely sincere when he had to refer to Messi's return at the time, he has now surrendered at the feet of the captain of the Argentine National Team just days before the 2023 Ballon d'Or ceremony.

Xavi was full of praise for Messi in the run-up to the Ballon d'Or

“It will be very difficult for us to see such a differential player again, because now everything is equal technically, physically, tactically, psychologically, and it is very difficult to be as superior to the rest as Messi has been in the last 15 or 20 years. I think Messi is the best player in the world and in history in my opinion, he deserves another Ballon d'Or and I hope they give it to him", he said in statements to TNT Sports Brasil.