PARIS: Lionel Messi said he’s in the right place to win another Champions League trophy and cited a reunion with Neymar as a key factor in his decision to sign with Paris St Germain, putting the tearful farewell he bade to Barcelona behind him after signing a two-year contract with the deep-pocketed French football powerhouse.

The 34-year-old Argentina star spoke at his introductory news conference at Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, the morning after joining star-studded PSG as a free agent after Barca, where he begun and always imagined he would play out his career, acknowledged last week they could no longer afford him.

Thousands of PSG fans thronged the side’s Parc des Princes, daring to believe their team would now deliver the Champions League having hoovered up domestic titles since free-spending owners Qatar Sports Investment European arrived in 2011 but always fallen short of European football’s top prize.

“I have said many times that my goal and dream is to win another Champions League and I think I am in the ideal place to have the best chances to achieve that,” Messi told reporters inside a packed auditorium, with the audience including his wife Antonella, their children, and his father and agent, Jorge.

“When you see this squad, you really want to play with them because there are so many possibilities,” ,” added Messi, who in a nod to his first squad number in senior football at Barcelona will wear the No. 30 jersey at PSG “We have the same goal. And Neymar of course did a lot and was important for my choice.

After years of failing to get beyond the quarter-finals, PSG finally reached the final in 2020, but lost to Bayern Munich, while last season they went out in the semi-finals. Messi helped Barcelona win four Champions League trophies.

“Sometimes you can have the best team in the world and not win. That’s football,” Messi, who won 35 trophies in total with Barca, said. “We know how difficult the Champions League is but Paris know that too — they have come very close in recent years but it is a competition in which the best teams take part and the best team doesn’t always win.”

Messis arrival gives PSG formidable attacking options as he links up with not only Neymar — his former team-mate at Barca — but also France World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe. Neymar left Catalonia for the French capital in a world record 222 million euro ($259.94 million) deal in 2017, but never hid his desire to link up with his close friend once again on the pitch.

“To play with the likes of Neymar and Mbappe is insane,” Messi continued. “I’m going to play with best players, it’s very nice, it’s incredible to be able to experience this.” Besides Neymar, he specifically cited Argentina team-mates and PSG players Angel di Maria and Leandro Paredes. “Obviously, one of the reasons [I came] was the locker room: Neymar, Di Maria, Paredes, whom I know.”

The Argentine conceded he did not know when he would make his debut, having not played since winning the Copa America with his country last month. “When I feel it, when the staff thinks I’m ok, I’ll be ready. I’m willing to play,” he said.

PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi praised “a historic day for the club, football world and it is a fantastic moment for us. Everybody knows Leo... He makes the football magic, beautiful and he’s a winner. It will be very exciting for our supporters and the fans worldwide, he added. We have big ambition.”

PSG are now even more obvious favourites to run away with the Ligue 1 title, a trophy they missed out on last season to Lille. However, despite concerns about a lack of competitive balance, French League president Vincent Labrune hailed the arrival of the six-time Ballon d’Or winner as “extraordinary news for the exposure of Ligue 1 internationally”.

Attention, though, will now turn to the future of 22-year-old Mbappe, who has just a year left on his contract and has been strongly linked to Real Madrid. “Kylian is a Parisian, he’s very competitive. He said he wanted a competitive team,” Al-Khelaifi said. “Now there’s no-one more competitive than us. He has no reason to do anything else, other than stay.”

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2021