The Argentine star Lionel Messi will seek this Saturday the third and last title of his cycle at Paris Saint-Germain, which expires on June 30, when his team visits Racing Strasbourg on the penultimate date of Ligue 1 .
The match will be played from 4:00 p.m. in Argentina simultaneously with the other nine on the date to avoid advantages in the definitions of the objectives in dispute: championship, classification to the cups and relegation.
PSG (84) leads the tournament with six points ahead of guard Lens, so a draw will be enough to ensure their consecration and remain as the most winning club in France at the local level.
If they achieve this, they will rank with 11 stars above Olympique de Marseille and Saint-Etienne, which add up to 10, and will ratify their hegemony in the last decade with nine titles since the 2012/13 season.
For Messi it will be the third achievement in the Parisian team, after last year’s Ligue 1 and the 2022/23 French Super Cup. Everything indicates that it will be the last because, although it was not officially reported, the Argentine has already decided not to renew his relationship. While Barcelona takes care of carrying out the accounting movements to ensure his return, complying with the financial fair play of LaLiga, the Argentine star beats the 43rd. title of his professional career.
His record registers 35 with the Catalan club (four Champions League, 10 Leagues, seven Copas del Rey, three Club World Cups, three Spanish Super Cups and eight European Super Cups) and another five with the Argentine shirt (the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the Copa América Brasil 2021, the FinalÃssima 2022, the U-20 World Cup 2005 and the gold medal of the Beijing Games 2008).
Perhaps this imminent coronation is for Messi the one with the most bittersweet flavor, since in recent months he has suffered the hostility of a sector of the Parisian fans who cannot assimilate the frustration of not having been able to win the Champions League in either of the two seasons with him. Argentinian.
Messi, also seen out of the corner of his eye for the final won with the Argentine National Team against France in Qatar, received whistles and disapprovals in his last games in the Parc des Princes, to which he will return on the last date against Clermont, quite possibly with Ligue 1 fastened
Regardless of the questions, PSG’s number 30 rounded off a good tournament that is reflected in the statistics: he is the team’s second highest scorer with 15 goals, behind Kylian Mbappé, and the highest assister with 16 assists.
“Leo’s commitment has been and is irreproachable from the beginning. Messi is football. I see him train every day and he’s had a great year. You only have to look at his goals and assists statistics. The fans expect many things, but he has He was better than in his debut”, acknowledged DT Christophe Galtier in the pre-match press conference. “I can’t talk about his first season because I wasn’t at PSG. In any case, I was proud that a footballer like him came to France”, he admitted almost with a farewell.