“Total war”: Barca fans storm the streets

After Lionel Messi announced that he wanted to leave FC Barcelona, hundreds of the club's fans stormed into the streets. Their anger was directed at President Josep Bartomeu. “Messi, stay!” and “Bartomeu, step down!” they chanted.

“You can accept defeats in sport, but I cannot accept that Messi is leaving us.” Barca fan Oriol Less than two weeks after the embarrassing 2-8 defeat in the Champions League against Bayern Munich, nothing is the same in Barcelona. With Messi's desire to say goodbye to the club he loved after 20 years, the (football) world has fallen apart. “I am very upset, for me Barca is Messi and Messi is Barca. “It’s one and the same, he’s the symbol of Barca,” 80-year-old Joana Polo told the news agency Reuters outside the Camp Nou.

Many Barca fans were dejected on Tuesday evening. © fc_barcelona_supporterss

“It’s an unbelievable shame! “I never thought this would ever happen,” raged the 40-year-old Oriol. “You can accept defeats in sport, but I cannot accept Messi leaving us. We will defend him to the death. He is not to blame. It’s those on the board who are to blame.” The daily newspaper Sport described the situation in the Catalan metropolis on its front page with two words: “Total war!” Messi's farewell is a gradual process The leader's alienation has already been announced in recent months. Messi, who has won virtually everything there is to win with Barca, has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with how the club is being run under Bartomeu. He criticized officials who had suggested salary cuts to the players due to the coronavirus pandemic. In July, the 33-year-old noted that the current team lacked quality.

“They've been making bad decisions for a long time, and this guy was getting tired of the fact that we don't have a project anymore, that we've betrayed our philosophy,” vented 28-year-old Albert, another disappointed fan. “The only thing he (Bartomeu; note) can do now is resign.”

But Messi will probably leave the sunken ship instead of him. The fact that the club and the new coach Ronald Koeman no longer have any use for friend Luis Suarez is said to have accelerated his decision-making process. Messi needs his environment, needs teammates who give him a certain feel-good atmosphere. The attacker from Uruguay is one of them. This summer the two spent the vacation together with their families. Where is Messi heading? The selection of clubs that can afford the Argentine is small: Manchester City, where there could be a reunion with coach Pep Guardiola and also “Albiceleste” friend Sergio Aguero. Paris Saint-Germain, where ex-teammate Neymar is said to have already made recruitment attempts, or Inter Milan. Father Jorge Messi is said to have already bought a property there. The clubs get their money from Abu Dhabi (City), Qatar (PSG) and China (Inter).

“There has been too much glorious history, the most glorious of all time for Barca, and it all ends like a tear in the rain. Neither Messi nor football deserved such an end,” wrote the Spanish sports newspaper As . And the Italian one Journal of Sport said: “It is difficult to imagine a sadder, more self-destructive, even more surreal ending.”

ES Primera Division International	SP	TV	P
1. Real Madrid	34	74:22	87
2.Girona F.C.	34	73:42	74
3. FC Barcelona	34	70:43	73
4. Atletico Madrid	34	63:39	67
5. Athletic Bilbao	34	55:33	61
6. Royal Society	34	48:35	54
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“Total war”: Barca fans storm the streets

The scenes were vaguely reminiscent of the footage of the anti-racism protests in many US cities, except that in Barcelona they remained peaceful.

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