Lionel Messi opens up on Barcelona exit and future in Spain: ‘It will be emotional to get back there’

Lionel Messi said he and his family plan to reside in Barcelona when his playing days are over, which would mark a return to the city after his self-described “strange” exit from the club in 2021.

“We miss Barcelona a lot,” Messi said in a recent interview with Spanish publication Sport. “With the kids, continuously, and my wife, we speak about things in Barcelona. The idea is to return there to live. We have our house there, everything, so that’s what we want.”

Messi left Barcelona upon the expiration of his contract in 2021, the club citing financial constraints for their inability to re-sign their biggest-ever star. The World Cup winner then played for Paris Saint-Germain before his 2023 move to Miami, his career and life keeping him away from Camp Nou until a visit over the weekend. It was an impromptu trip to the under-construction stadium, per ESPN, with Messi joined by his club and country teammate Rodrigo De Paul.

“I am really looking forward to getting back to the stadium when it’s finished because I moved to Paris and I never returned to Camp Nou,” he said in the interview, which happened before his recent visit. “And then Barca moved to [the Olympic Stadium in] Montjuïc. It will be strange to go back and see it because the last time I saw it was a long time ago. It will be emotional to get back there and remember everything that was.”

In an Instagram post on Sunday, he wrote that he hopes he can “return someday, and not just to say goodbye as a player, which I never got to do.” The nature of Messi’s exit has remained a talking point in the years since his departure, in part because Barcelona have teased the idea of a tribute to Messi sometime after Camp Nou re-opens following the renovation project. Messi, though, still has unresolved feelings about his departure from the club he joined as a 13-year-old in 2000.

“It’s a strange feeling after leaving, because of how it all happened, because I spent my final seasons there playing without fans due to the pandemic,” he said. “After spending all my life there, I didn’t leave as I had dreamed of. I imagined myself spending my whole career in Europe in Barcelona and then coming here [to Miami], as I did, because that was my plan. It was what I wanted. So, my goodbye was a little strange, because of the situation.”