La Liga giant Barcelona have added their interest, Brazil international Paulinho, to their ranksthis summer.
The deal is reportedly worth €40 million as the Catalan side find replacement for Neymar. Neymar left the club in a world record move to French side Paris St Germain for €222 million. The 25-year old was one of the three major attackers at the club, the other being Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, before he exited.
Paulinho, 29, has played at Corinthians and Tottenham Hotspur before he moved to China to play for Guangzhou Evergrande. He flopped in the Premier League at White Hart Lane but found better form in China. He is set to have his medical in Spain on Thursday with him likely to complete the deal on the same day.
The midfielder re-established himself in the Brazilian national team following the appointment of Tite as the coach in 2016. The manager gave him opportunities as he did well in the Far East and he impressed in the South American World Cup qualifiers. He was part of the team that won the Confederations Cup in 2013 and has netted nine times in 41 international fixtures. Read more »
Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde says he is happy to have his star player Lionel Messi in the team.
He says having the Argentine superstar is way better than having to make plans on how to stop him if he were to feature against a rival side.
Valverde lost his three battles against Barcelona when he was with Athletic Bilbao last term. The Catalan side defeated Bilbao in two legs before seeing them off in the Copa Del Rey in January courtesy of a Messi free kick winner. The same Copa America finalist scored goals against Valverde’s Basque side in the 2015 Copa Del Rey.
“Of course Messi is a unique player and he will have a role whereby he can play in any position and play well. Regardless of how we start the game, he will end up in defined positions. It’s a feeling of relief. When you’re sitting on the opposition bench you see that you’re lacking the players it takes to stop him,” the coach said Read more »
Lionel Messi is advising new Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde on potential signings, according to reports.
Messi has appealed that the coach get new legs into the team but that they have to be world class in their roles.
He asked that Valverde look at signings like Liverpool playmaker Philippe Coutinhp or top-rated midfielder Marco Verratti. The former Bilbao manager was only confirmed few days back. He is set to overhaul the team in the pre-season.
Don Balon claims Messi is adding pressure on the manager to quickly settle down to business. Manchester City shocked everyone when they quickly completed the deal for AS Monaco star Bernardo Silva. The deal cost £43 million, with City offering the player £175,000 per week for five years. Pep Guardiola has started rebuilding the City team after clearing out five over-30 players recently. Read more »
Juventus star Paulo Dybala claims that he does not have the greatest relationship with Lionel Messi.
The former is regarded as the next great thing in the world football. It persuaded Juventus to pay €33 million for his services from Palermo. Dybala has been going through an extraordinary campaign with Juventus so much so that he has already been regarded as the successor for Messi. Both Argentines met each other in the Champions League quarter-finals, as Barcelona made the trip to Turin in order to play against Juventus. However, the game ended in a bad mood for one of the Argentines, as Lionel Messi’s Barcelona suffered a 3-0 defeat.
Messi was unable to have any influence on the game while he watched 23-year-oldDybala dominate the game by scoring two goals.Dybala had an extraordinary 90 minutes which showed that he was certainly going to improve even further. After the game, the 23-year-old spoke about his relationship – or the lack of it – with Lionel Messi. Read more »
There are media reports that Lionel Messi might be moving to England during the summer with Manchester City interested in signing the Argentina forward.
It is reported that Manchester City is prepared to pay a fee of £100 million in order to bring the player to England.
With Messi yet to sign a new contract with Barcelona and with his various issues with the tax authorities in Spain it is becoming increasingly likely that the player might be tempted to move abroad where he will feel more at ease.
At Manchester City, he will be reunited with his former coach Pep Guardiola with whom he has won countless amounts of trophies. He will feel that this will be a great opportunity for him to make a name for himself in the Premier League while earning more money at the same time.
Guardiola has hinted that he will need new players for next season as he feels that his current squad lack the quality and the depth to challenge for the Premier League. Indeed the Spanish manager has enjoyed a tough season so far in England and will feel that a player such as Lionel Messi will definitely help in improving his side. Read more »
Barcelona are set to visit Celtic on Wednesday in a Group C UEFA Champions League game.
Celtic have garnered just two points so far, and they would be hoping to force an upset even if they do not continue to the next stage of the tournament. In addition, if they can get the required results at home, they stand a chance at qualifying for the knockout phase but Manchester City would have to do them the favour of slipping against Borussia Monchengladbach. Man City themselves would not want to take their chances against Barcelona as they would want to get the win and hopefully finish top if Barca slip.
Barcelona defeated Celtic 7-0 at home earlier but Celtic would be hoping to get their own pound of flesh when they meet.
“[It will be] a tough game, of course – they’re a top class, world-class team with arguably the best front three that has ever played for Barcelona. But I would hope that it would be a different performance from ourselves,” Brendan Rodgers, Celtic coach said ahead of the clash. Read more »
Former Liverpool midfielder Maxi Rodriguez says that he is hopeful that Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi will join Newell’s Old Boys after the end of the World Cup 2018.
Regarded as one of the best players in the world, Messi has incredibly never played much of his football in Argentina. He joined Barcelona as a youngster and has never looked back since. However, he has recently spoken about his desire to retire back in his home country. After starting out his career withNewell’s Old Boys, it is highly probable that Messi will chose to end his career at this club.
Any club in the world will find it hard to afford Lionel Messi without any help from the player. He has a release clause in his contract with more than £250 million and not to mention the astronomical wages of around £15 million per season. The left footed attacker’s contract with Barcelona comes to an end in June 2018. Read more »
Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi has warned his teammates that they can expect a tough fight from Celtic when they face the Scottish club in the Champions League group stages.
Barcelona have been once again handed a group of death after being paired against Manchester City, Borussia Monchengladbach, and Celtic. Of the four teams, Celtic are seen as the least possible threat to Barcelona since the Scottish club have nowhere near of the quality of players at the disposal of Luis Enrique. Even though the
arrival of manager Brendan Rodgers in the summer has contributed to players like Kolo Toure coming to the club, they are expected to finish bottom of the group.
Messi is one of the few players in this current Barcelona team to have come up against Celtic. The two teams came up against each other in the group stages of the 2013 Champions League season. However, the world witnessed one of the shocking results in the 2012 Champions League group stages. Celtic were perceived to have less quality than this current team. Even then, they managed an astonishing 2-1 win over the Barcelona team at Celtic Park. They are largely relied upon their home advantage to produce this stunning result and Messi was one of the scorers on the night.
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It is said that true heroes cannot be rivals at heart and that has never been truly demonstrated as when Messi announced his retirement and even his so called arch rival Ronaldo was moved to make a statement in this regard.
The loss that Argentina had in the finals of Copa America was more heartfelt by Messi than by any other person. However, even at this time Ronaldo stated that he felt sad to see Messi in tears and
that he wished that Messi would reconsider ending his international career so soon. Indeed, the team has been facing trying times. After having made it to the finals of the Copa America team was not able to see victory.
Being only about 29 years of age, it is indeed too early for Messi to decide to retire. His legendary football playing skills will be lost to the major league tournaments if he decides to retire for good from international matches. The Barcelona star felt responsible for not being able to use the spot kick opportunity in the shootout that could have helped his team to gain victory. However, no matter how hard he is in himself, his fans and other fellow players have been pleading with him to reconsider his decision. Read more »
Former Argentina legend Diego Maradona has urged Lionel Messi not to leave Argentina. He believes that Argentina still needs him and that he should continue fighting for his country.
Indeed, the Barcelona player has announced that he would not play for Argentina again following their defeat in the Copa America final against Chile.
Lionel Messi that he has lost in four finals with Argentina and that it is no use trying again. He wants to give the chance to others so that he can focus on what he does best that is playing for Barcelona.
Since this announcement many personalities have tried to convince Lionel Messi to reconsider his decision and Diego Maradona is one of those. The latter believes that Messi has a chance at the next World Cup in Russia and that he should not give up now.
Maradona believes that Lionel Messi still has a lot to give to the Argentina team and that he is a big chance to become World Champion in Russia. He has asked Messi to listen to the Argentina players and also to people that want him to stay rather than giving heed to people that just want to see him leave. Indeed, there are a growing number of people that believe that the presence of Messi is just preventing the team from playing collectively and that the team will be better off without him. Read more »
October 6, 2017 3:32 am | 
