sport news Man City not signing Messi in 2021 was one of their smartest moves trends now

Those of us lucky enough to work in this trade all have our favourite memories of Lionel Messi.

Mine came on a night when he was away from home territory. He was not at Barcelona’s Nou Camp but at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea, five years ago. I was designated just to watch him that night so I did.

This was not a bravura performance such as the one he produced in the World Cup semi-final against Croatia. Nor did it contain a memorable moment like the nutmeg he put on James Milner when Manchester City came to Spain in 2015.

But that night in West London introduced me a little to what Messi is really about. It showed me the extent to which he understood time and space, the way he anticipated play and the fact he actually spent so much of the game walking, waiting and watching rather than just running.

Remember that old saying about Kenny Dalglish always covering the first couple of yards in his head? Well, this was exactly that. It was a spellbinding 90 minutes and Messi scored as well. Of course he did.

This summer we say good bye to Messi as a competitive entity. Now aged 35 he has confirmed he is to leave PSG for Inter Miami in the MLS. David Beckham, the club’s co-owner, will be imagining the tills ringing already. As for the rest of us, it’s farewell really and as his old mentor Pep Guardiola prepares his latest assault on a Champions League the timing feels fitting.

Some have made much of the fact Guardiola has never conquered Europe without Messi in his team. The two men won it twice with Barcelona and then Guardiola entered that peculiarly fallow period with Bayern Munich and then City that seems to have gone on and on. To me, it’s a curiosity and no more. Guardiola’s problems with the Champions League do not take anything away from his genius or his standing. He’s won more than 30 trophies as a coach and I think that’s enough.

Here in Istanbul on Saturday I would expect that to change anyway. Guardiola and City will beat Inter Milan. Of that I am sure. As someone said to me before the 2011 final between Barcelona and Manchester United in London: ‘Ian, Barcelona are just better…’

So Guardiola’s cycle of work and achievement will be complete this weekend and he will have done it without the player to whom he once seemed so wedded.

City themselves have spent much of the last decade wondering about Messi and whether he could ever be persuaded to come to the Etihad. Ever since Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano preceded Guardiola’s arrival at City, the possibility has been on the table. Soriano – close to Messi’s father Jorge - always insisted the little genius would see out his career at Barcelona.

That was always vaguely disingenuous. Begiristain and Soriano always knew there were buttons they could press if that relationship between player and club showed signs of fracturing and when it did two years ago an opportunity was theirs.

That, we recall, was the summer of Harry Kane. He didn’t come. And also of Jack Grealish. He did. Messi to City was in the air at that time. There was a deal to be done and, as strange as it sounds, the fact City didn’t do it perhaps sits as one of the smartest moves they ever made.

It would have been fascinating to see Messi here, of course. He would have had an impact. But the Messi PSG have seen over these last two seasons have not been the one we know or the one we saw at last winter’s World Cup.

Messi in France has been fitfully effective. Indeed he scored a smashing goal against City themselves at the Parc de Princes at the start of the 2021/22 Champions League season.

But Messi has never been quite the team-orientated communal entity some would have you believe. There

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