Lionel Messi’s secret visit to the Camp Nou on Sunday night and his message on Instagram with the photo of the stadium undergoing renovation kicked off a storm on the internet. “Last night I returned to a place I miss with my soul. A place where I was immensely happy, where you guys made me feel a thousand times the happiest person in the world. I hope one day I can come back, and not just to say goodbye as a player, as I never got to…,” Messi wrote on his Instagram.
In a recent interaction with SPORT as per Goal.com, Messi opened up about eventually finding a way back to Barcelona, the club where he was molded into one of the best in the world.
“I really want to go back there, we miss Barcelona a lot. My wife and I, the kids, are constantly talking about Barcelona and the idea of moving back. We have our house there, everything, so that’s what we want. I’m really looking forward to going back to the stadium when it’s finished because since I left for Paris, I haven’t been back to Camp Nou, and then they moved to Montjuic,” Messi said.
The Argentine World Cup winner had to leave his beloved Barcelona in tears at the end of the 2020-21 season due to the Catalan club’s financial issues. He would join Paris Saint Germain for 2 years and then sign with Inter Miami in 2023, where he currently plies his trade.
“I was left with a strange feeling after leaving, because of how everything happened, because I ended up playing my last years without fans, because of the pandemic. After spending my whole life there, I didn’t leave the way I imagined, the way I dreamed,” he said.
“I imagined, as I said, playing my whole career in Europe, in Barcelona, and then, yes, coming here like I did, because that was my plan, what I wanted. And well, the farewell was a bit strange too, because of the situation, because of everything. But well, I think the fans’ affection will always be there, because of what I said, because of everything we’ve been through,” Messi added.
