Manchester City are confident they are Lionel Messi’s first choice should he leave Barcelona, with the club’s senior executives having inquired about the Argentinian.
Although it was established Messi is content at Barca and has no plans to leave, City believe Pep Guardiola’s arrival in the summer puts them in pole position should the five-times world player of the year depart.
Guardiola was in charge of Barcelona from 2008-12, when Messi was part of the team who won the first treble in Spanish history, along with a second Champions League, two more La Liga titles and a further Copa del Rey.
Txiki Begiristain, City’s sporting director, and Ferran Soriano, the chief executive, also worked closely with Messi when in similar positions at Barcelona. Soriano, in particular, is thought to be close to Messi and his family.
City continue to monitor Messi’s situation should he become unsettled. The 28-year-old faces a tax case in which he and his father, Jorge, are accused of defrauding the Spanish state of €4.2m between 2007 and 2009. The court hearing starts in Barcelona on May 31st. Messi and his father deny wrongdoing and paid €5m in 2013 as a corrective measure, amounting to the alleged unpaid tax plus interest.
Messi is contracted to Barca until summer 2018 when he will be approaching his 30th birthday. He is thought to earn around €20m a year, or €385,000 a week, and to have a buyout clause of €250m. Messi could expect any deal to take him to the Etihad Stadium to bring a marked increase in salary but City’s ability to market the forward as their global icon means his presence at the club would be lucrative.
The City hierarchy also view Guardiola’s arrival as giving the club an edge with regard to buying any Barcelona players they may be interested in. When Guardiola joined Bayern Munich in June 2013 following a year’s sabbatical after leaving Barcelona he was reluctant to return to the Catalan club for players. In three seasons at the Bundesliga champions he has taken only Thiago Alcantara from Barca, in his first summer.
Players that would be of interest to Guardiola include the midfielder Sergio Busquets, the right-back Dani Alves and the forward Neymar, who considered an approach from Manchester United last summer.
Meanwhile, Kevin De Bruyne said he is recovering faster than expected from a serious knee injury and may be available for City’s game at Bournemouth on 2 April. De Bruyne tore knee ligaments in the Capital One Cup semi-final against Everton at the end of January but could return as City try to secure a top-four finish and progress to the Champions League semi-finals by beating Paris Saint-Germain.
He said: “My injury is going good. I am training very well and I think I’m ahead of schedule. I’m looking to be back after the international break. I think that’s a couple of weeks ahead.
“I have been training outside for almost two-and-a-half weeks with the physios, doing like one-and-a-half hour sessions a day, plus inside. For the moment I am not having any issues with any individual stuff, so I am doing fine.”
City are in fourth place, a point ahead of West Ham United and Manchester United with eight matches left. “I think it’s always frustrating for a player not to be there but from the day it happened I switched my button and I am preparing myself to do well in the next couple of games that I will be there,” De Bruyne said.
“It’s been tough because we have lost a few games in the league and we are a little bit behind but we are there in the Champions League and looking forward to that and hopefully we can do well.
“I think it’s a very nice draw. PSG are a wonderful club. They are already champions in France and maybe that can be an advantage for us but if you want to win the Champions League you have to win against the big guns.”
City are 15 points behind Leicester City having played a game less. “Mathematically there’s always a chance. We are a lot of points behind with eight games to go. If we don’t get it, we have to try to be second and try to win as many games as possible to qualify for the Champions League next year,” the Belgium midfielder said. Guardian Service
