Lionel Messi became the seventh Argentine footballer since in 2011 Qatar Sports Investment (QSI) bought PSG from the North American investment fund Colony Capital.
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The first to disembark was Javier Pastore, in 2011, visible head and symbol of a soccer project that was going to expand with an aggressive participation in the transfer market. The former Huracán player was signed to Palermo (Italy) for 42 million euros, the highest of the 11 passes that PSG closed that season to create a team that would break the hegemony of Lyon.
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Along with Pastore came Thiago Motta, Gameiro, Matuidi, Diego Lugano and Maxwell, among others. In that mid-year market, PSG invested 160 million in the 11 reinforcements. A way to announce that new times were coming, if compared to the last year of the North American owners, who had only paid 9 million in three footballers.
In their first season with QSI at the helm, PSG finished second in Ligue 1, behind Montpellier. Interested that the glamor of Paris as a city was also reflected in the team that represented it, PSG opened the doors to an autumnal David Beckham, 37 years old. The Englishman was only a semester and retired from football on the banks of the Seine, in mid-2013, with a league title.
(What’s more: Like a work of art: PSG shows Messi as their star signing)
David Beckham joined PSG in 2013.
AFP – EL TIEMPO Archive
That team that Beckham made up had incorporated important pieces, Ezequiel Lavezzi among them, plus Marco Verratti, who over the years became a benchmark that remains, and the ineffable Zlatan Ibrahimovic, author of 156 goals in four seasons. The defense had added a leader: Thiago Silva.
In the following season (2012/13), the buying compass found the forward who became the club’s historic goalscorer, Uruguayan Edinson Cavani, who left 200 celebrations before going to Manchester United. In that market, a player who continues to give him revenues, the Brazilian Marquinhos, was also hired.
Founded in 1970, PSG found five of its six historic scorers from QSI financial injections: Cavani (200), Ibrahimovic (156), Kylian Mbappé (132), Ángel Di María (88) and Neymar (87). The exception, past to the Qatari leadership, is the Portuguese Pauleta, with 109 between 2003 and 2008.
(What’s more: Lionel Messi: the story of the millionaire owner of PSG)
In the 2015/16 season, PSG was the escape route for Angel Di Maria Manchester United, the only forgettable European stopover in his career. In Paris he completed the maturation stage of a level that at Real Madrid had more recognition from the coaches, including Carlo Ancelotti, than from the president Florentino Pérez.
PSG’s radar reached Rosario in 2016 to take Giovani Lo Celso, who at only 20 years old needed some time to adapt, until a loan to Betis allowed him to achieve continuity and arouse the interest of Tottenham.
Neymar, Brazilian soccer player.
PSG’s economic might reached its peak in 2017, when it convinced Neymar to leave Barcelona to leave for his buyout clause of 222 million euros, which remains the record pass. The impact was greater when in that same market he hired Mbappé from Monaco. In order not to break the Financial Fair Play, the forward appeared as a loan and the following season the 145 million of his pass were counted, second among the highest in the world.
In addition to Di María, the other two Argentines that Messi will meet are Leandro Paredes and Mauro Icardi, for whom PSG invested a total of 90 million euros. And on the bench he will have Mauricio Pochettino, someone with whom he should understand without interference because of everything they have in common: both are born in Newell’s and the coach cultivates a driving profile that obtains the complicity of the player.
(In other news: Caterine Ibargüen supports the complaint against the president of the Federation)
In a decade, PSG invested 1,391 million in reinforcements. Before he already loved Messi, for whose pass now he does not pay a euro.
Claudio Mauri
The Nation (Argentina)
GDA
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