He offered himself to City, Lionel Messi's talk with Pep Guardiola

Lionel Messi had the opportunity to join Manchester City after his time with FC Barcelona, when he did not have a good relationship with the Catalan club and made the decision to seek reunion with Pep Guardiola in the Premier League.

It was in the summer of 2020 when a crisis occurred between Messi and the Blaugrana board, where a burofax was sent requesting his departure from the institution. It was in the book by journalist Marti Perarnau called God save Pep where what happened that summer with Joseph Maria Bartomeu as president of Barcelona was revealed.

Later it was Pep who received a message from Messi himself asking if he could go to the Citizens led by Guardiola and that there was a meeting at his house in Barcelona with the Catalan coach. In the talk, Messi told the City coach about the differences there were with the Barcelona board, especially with Bartomeu, where he felt deceived and betrayed.

The thing is that he is less of a guardiolist than the guardiolists. Basically he has managed to summarize the essence of his football ideology in a few fundamentals, if any in one; I have the ball, it is mine, they cannot take it away from me, through it I organize myself, through it I subdue the rival and if I I try to get it back as soon as possible. That would be roughly the great essence of it. Everything else is secondary, changeable, random, modifiable, year by year, game by game, even within the same game or when necessary. It doesn't matter three or five defenders, a pure nine or a false nine. The team has bought it and everything else flows better or worse depending on the day.

The conversation

In the chapter called I just want to break it, it is said that the Argentine star met with Pep in August 2020, at which time he was going through a tense situation in Barcelona due to the differences he had with some managers, especially Josep María Bartomeu. For this reason, Messi expressed to Guardiola his desire to break it again, making it clear that he wanted to reunite with his former coach on the Blaugrana team.