Usually the articles, videos, and podcasts that I work on are well-researched and as objective as possible. But the debate that is currently raging on social media – Should Culers watch Messi at PSG? – is a conversation where objective opinions and a lack of emotion are unwelcome.
Now that he’s made his debut for Paris Saint-Germain, playing a little over 24 minutes in a substitute appearance, the final cold reality has set in. Lionel Messi is gone. He’s gone for at least the next two years is more reasonable to say, though it isn’t necessarily more likely.
Following his career is one thing, but actively spending time with his new team is another. So many Culers found the club through Messi, especially those in North America and Asia. His rise to prominence correlated almost perfectly with greater viewing availability around the world. Add social media and the ability to share his greatness game in and game out, and you understand why a multitude of Barcelona fans exist solely through the prism of Lionel Messi devotion.
I guarantee there will be callous responses to this prompt. Should I watch Messi at PSG? The answer is obvious to you. Of course I will, I love him more than the club some will say. Of course not others will argue, it’s a waste of my time to entertainment even a moment of those French frauds. It’s a bit unfair – non-Barcelona fans get to enjoy and appreciate him wherever he goes, club allegiances be damned.
But for Culers, the idea of rooting for him appears to be counterintuitive to rooting against PSG. Messi’s success will largely contribute to PSG realizing their destiny, one entrenched in an ignorance to fair play and a neglect of the organic work needed to prioritize the fans in the city that they call home. Say what you will about Barcelona and their efforts to bring in a global audience – the decisions of the socios in Catalonia hold more say and power than any amount of global social media campaigns could ever.
There is a rare Culer out there that, for their own self-preservation, must treat Messi like the boyfriend/girlfriend that they had to break up with because their father or mother got a job in a new city. Neither party wanted the relationship to end, but it has; they found someone new, and we can either be happy for them, numb ourselves to the loss, or misdirect our resentment. For the majority of Barça fans, we take on the impossible task of trying to separate the man that helped us love football for so long with the devastating way that this all turned out and the rival that dried his tears.
That’s what makes the decision to watch Messi so individual. Everyone feels their feelings differently. Due to watching hundreds of games every year across tons of sports and preserving my own sanity with irrational optimism, I will occasionally tune in to PSG out of curiosity for an old friend. I don’t care about the result of the match. I don’t care about his stats or the heroics he delivers his new supporters. I’ll watch with the satisfaction that he’s proving to Ligue 1 that Barcelona had the greatest player of all time for almost two decades. As I watched his debut, I was calmed by the pain that had turned to pride. For your sake, I hope you can join me there soon.
Dan Hilton is an American journalist, broadcaster, and current Editor-in-Chief of BarcaBlog. Extensive work as a play-by-play broadcaster, producer behind the scenes, and quite average player in his younger years has given him a well-rounded and informative perspective on the sport. Alongside BarcaBlog founder Francesc, Dan started The Barcelona Podcast in 2017
