I explain myself When Xavi landed on the Barça bench, he made his debut with a striker with Ilias Akhomach (who was just making his debut with the first team), Memphis and playing Gavi on the left wing. On the other hand, Barça can now boast of signings (now all that remains is to register them) and the options that Xavi has for the striker are numerous and rich: Lewandowski, Raphinha, Dembélé, Ansu, Ferran… Messi is surely still more talented than all of them and maybe only the Pole can be as decisive or more than the Argentine inside the area. But, despite this, Barça finally seems to have a striker to start digesting the void left by the departure of 10 after more than a decade making Camp Nou smile.
Xavi has always defended that coaching Messi would be a privilege and an honor, but while this is true, it is also true that a return of the Argentine would involve conditioning a striker and a team that, with what they have been teaching this pre-season, seems that can roll well. I can’t imagine Messi coming back to be a luxury substitute. Managing the same substitute for Xavi in his last year as a player was already a challenge for Luis Enrique, and let’s see what happens this year with Piqué, for many gestures of love with the club that wants to play the central role. If Barça manage to have a sharp and effective striker this season, perhaps it would be a step backwards to undo what has been built to integrate Messi again, as bad as it is for me to write this. Doing a football-fiction exercise, I could imagine him as an interior, with that gift to filter passes that only he knows how to see and with arrival, because the goal has always been with him.
My heart asks for his return to the Camp Nou and to live one last dance of the player who has made me the happiest, but the boss doesn’t see it so clearly.
