PSG, Messi and that ugly chase for CL glory

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We have seen the mad chase for glory among the football elite and how they try to find a quick fix and trying to buy the game all together. Early on you had AC Milan signing up all the best players available to try to hijack the CL trophy, then Marseille became a face of the same, it all ended in a decline among those giants.

Today we have seen something of the same with PSG and their owners signing Leo Messi, and with that comes a price for the Argentinian, playing to win the CL trophy. We hope that this is the last approach from a club to buy aged players with a big name to try to win a major trophy.

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The signing for Leo Messi became reality because Barca couldn’t afford to keep their best player and for Messi to not chase the big bucks might have been the only idea, greed and hunger for more money, stops the fun with sports. We all know how China tried to buy themselves a bit of football fun, but has been stopped by money shipped into Europe from other nations were owners of the clubs have their earnings from totally different businesses.

The move for Leo Messi will of course be huge and hopefully the 34 year old shows his class on the field and by that moving the club further and closer to achieving their goal. But with this buy we can see that development of their own players has been difficult as they seldom make recruitments to the first team from their own academy.

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The club that was formed in 1970 has had a turbulent life going up and down between the divisions and also had several different owners during their time of existence. The QSI took over in 2011 and since then money has been flushed in to try to win trophies, but this season they did see Lille in front.

There are many fans with PSG is said to be the most followed club in France. They are winners of the French Ligue 1 several times and won the first trophy as far back as 1985-86, last seen as winners in 2019-20.

The PSG model solution of present will fail long term as it is an approach to the game that often is based on an idea that big names can be a solution, and it has been sometimes in the past, but not long term, with a development from the PSG Academy seen in a much broader scale. The club must relate to their own system and not buying every player from outside.

Players form the academy do at times get a look in but is more like a place to grow before taking the step out to other clubs. Recruitment and the full understanding of a development of players is a clever act, and without a major plan of that taking place, you will not over time build credit for your talent education.

Leo Messi is not the only new old boy in the squad with Sergio Ramos coming in from Real Madrid, and their names might be bigger and better than most, but we do have doubts about players in their mid 30’s being the solution for a trophy hunt long term and to get Messi and Ramos must be just to try to win the CL trophy this season and with both players probably out of the game in three to four years time, it looks a bit dramatic.

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You have a number of players that have joined PSG and not really been able to fulfill their talent such as Julian Draxler and Idrissa Gueye, coming in from Bundesliga and Premier League. This term Giorginio Wijnaldum has moved in from Liverpool him probably also seen as a short term investment rather than long term leaving on a free from Liverpool.

So how will all this work out when pushing such a massive group of new players in with those at the club from before, will it be space enough and with what we have heard from the Barca camp, how will Leo Messi adapt to France and what type of role will he accept, going from being a god to move out and be something else.

We will see if PSG can buy the CL this season, hopefully young talent at other places and other clubs do find it challenging to try to win as well, interesting aspects to watch as next season again will see surprises happening.