Manchester City: The £100M Pep-Messi reunion rumors need to stop

The dream of a Pep Guardiola-Lionel Messi pairing at Manchester City is apparently too sweet to give up even if it costs, at least, £100 million.

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Pep and Messi sitting in a tree: K-I-S-S-I-N-G — at least that’s how the tune should go. Really. It’s way more interesting and accurate. That’s because there’s really another rumor that Pep Guardiola is willing to offer £100 million for Barcelona to let its “I am the Alpha, I am the Omega” proportions superstar go to Manchester City.

The Manchester Evening News cites the Mirror’s gossip-mongering: “there is a belief at the Etihad Stadium that Messi is ready to leave the club he has represented throughout his career and they are confident a £100m deal could see the Argentine wearing City blue next season.”

The likelihood that all this could happen hinges on the notion that Barca is ready to move on from Lionel Messi. That, the Catalan giants are sequestering off its financial resources to keep Neymar and Luis Suarez long-term, and the executives don’t like Messi, the player that’s had a huge hand in the millions they’ve made on the expanded Barca brand thanks to the club’s dominance he’s spearheaded through the last 10 years.

The large piece of evidence apparently is that Messi’s contract runs out at the end of the season, and Barca’s been slow to negotiate a new deal with the boy they raised and groomed into a legend.

BARCELONA, SPAIN – MAY 05: Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona (L) hugs his Head coach Josep Guardiola of FC Barcelona after scoring his team’s third goal during the La Liga match between FC Barcelona and RCD Espanyol at Camp Nou on May 5, 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. This was Guardiola’s last match. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images) /

Then enter City, the perfect destination: Former mentor of Messi, Guardiola, joins the club. Its director of football Txiki Begiristain and CEO Ferran Soriano are also on good terms with Messi thanks to an overlapping Camp Nou pedigree. Sergio Aguero reportedly is friends with him from the Argentina national team. Plus, there are his other countrymen and Argentine internationals Pablo Zabaleta, Nicolas Otamendi, Willy Caballero already on the squad.

Oh, and don’t forget English media’s pride in the Premier League that fosters the gosh-darn idea that the EPL is the last frontier for Messi. It’s the last place for him to conquer in club soccer. So he’ll come here to further his legacy and other brouhaha like that.

And this, my friends, is how we get a rumor that just won’t die. There’s enough rationalizations there to make it plausible in theory. The theory has some holes, however.

First of all, £100 million is not nearly enough for Messi. Transfermarkt lists him a little above at about £102 million, but I’m inclined to think Barca is inclined to milk every last penny from the golden goose before they let him fly away.

That is, if the club is ready to part ways. I’m not so sure Barca is. Putting aside domestic goals, it’s ambitions are to win the UEFA Champions League every year. Losing Messi jeopardizes that end. Even worse, whether he goes to City or somewhere else, it elevates that club as potential rival to hoist the trophy in May next year.

Furthermore, Barca’s next generation, Sergi Roberto and Denis Suarez and company, have disappointed and don’t look primed to carry the club into the lofty future it envisions for itself. Those growing pains could dissuade from cutting the cord with Messi (See the 4-0 shellacking at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday).

So please, please, please, temper the expectations when thinking about a Pep-Messi reunion. It’s not that I don’t want to see them reunited, but I think both of them are good enough to stand alone, which they have already done when Pep went to the Bundesliga. These rumors are a pipe dream to recapture the Barca dominance of the 2000s.

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So wishing really hard for their bromance, at this point is torture. This is becoming fan-fiction. Not that “50 Shades Bluer” isn’t a nice fantasy to entertain, every once it a while, in your deepest, darkest, most intimate moments — if you’re into that macabre sort of thing. But it will always be a fantasy.

And it’s beginning to hurt.