Better! Better! That’s how it hurt the English more!”
Menotti on Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’
The Second Coming of Leo Messi is the dominant topic of conversation this week of Resurrection in the pagan sector of Barcelona society, and surely among devotees of the Christian faith as well. The problem is that, blinded by the illusion, they forget that his soul is a Muslim, that he has sold it to the Saudi Sunnis.
What will be the next step of the Messiah? His stage at Paris Saint-Germain will come to an end in the summer, but in practice it’s over. He never felt passion for PSG. It was obviously a way to earn a lot of money and stay in shape for the World Cup. With the objective achieved, it is clear that he cares little about his French team. PSG hasn’t stopped losing since Messi lifted the World Cup in December, and on Sunday, after a home loss, the fans booed him, not for the first time.
The options that Messi has seem to be, one, to return to Barça; two, go to David Beckham’s Inter Miami; or, three, recover his rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo in the Saudi league. I propose a fourth option: that he go to Newcastle United. I think that for him it would be the best, the one that reconciles all his needs.
First of all, because it would be the ideal way to combine his two vocations, that of a footballer and that of a Saudi tourism ambassador. One of Newcastle’s three first-team shirts features the colors of its owners, those of the Saudi flag. The day Messi dressed her, we would see something magical on the field, the fusion of everything he represents: football, marketing and moral desert.
But there is more. If it is true that now Messi’s goal is to maintain his level in order to lead the Argentine team in the Copa América, what better place than the most competitive league in the world? He has never played in the Premier League, and succeeding in the country of the “English pirates”, the usurpers of the Malvinas, is a challenge that would earn him even more glory in his homeland.
Also, why not? It would give joy to the long-suffering Newcastle fans, who need it even more than those of Barça. Living with them for a while would be a gesture of kindness more than enough to earn their place in heaven. Newcastle is not Barcelona. There is neither sun, nor beach nor GaudÃ. It is a depressed, rainy and cold city whose football club is the only reason why its people do not succumb to the logic of collective suicide.
Founded in 1892 (40 years before Saudi Arabia), the north-east England club is a traditional great that hasn’t won a major trophy since 1955. Suddenly, since the arrival of the Wizards of the East at the end of 2021, it’s going like a train Today they are third in the Premier. If Messi were to join, there would be a good chance that he could extend his streak of competing in the Champions League to twenty straight seasons.
And he would face a challenge that could excite him: to contribute to the fact that for the first time since the creation of the Premier League in 1992, a team with an English coach was proclaimed champion. Yes that’s how it is. Two Scots, two Italians, a Portuguese, a French, a Spanish (or Catalan, if you prefer) and a Chilean have won it. But never an Englishman.
Newcastle’s current manager, Eddie Howe, was not born in Santpedor or Setúbal, but in Amersham, in Buckinghamshire, north of London. He is one of the four English coaches in the Premier. There were eight when the 2022-23 league began, including famous former players such as Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. The latest to be sacked was Graham Potter on Sunday, after a dismal seven months in charge of Chelsea.
The cliché is that the English are illiterate when it comes to football. Absolutely right, seen what has been seen. Wouldn’t it give Messi a perverse taste to show that only with a great Argentine by his side is an Englishman capable of winning the Premier? Wouldn’t it be another finger on the pirates’ sore spot, and also another great trophy to round off his triumphant career? I don’t know how Messi’s mental processes operate. Maybe he doesn’t even know. But – may the Catalans forgive me – going to Newcastle looks like the perfect solution: they would pay him more than ever, he would raise the Argentine flag over Perfidious Albion and he would more than fulfill his mission as an evangelist for the sacred Saudi cause.
