Lionel Messi realised something needed to change. It is remarkable to say it now, especially given how easy Ligue 1 generally is for Paris Saint-Germain, but the Argentine found French football unexpectedly difficult in his first season. He struggled with the physicality. Messi just wasn’t used to the robustness of the challenges. It greatly subdued his whole game. His entourage found all of his analytics were way down. He wasn’t involved much in play. It was, according to those who know him, “the worst season of his career”.
It wouldn’t be Messi, though, if he didn’t take the challenge head on. He couldn’t leave it like that and just go to Inter Miami, especially with this World Cup on the horizon. Messi and his team decided to undertake the biggest change to his physical programme since 2014. That year’s World Cup was coincidentally one when he was brilliant in moments but it just wasn’t the Messi we know. It wasn’t a truly Messi World Cup in the way it should have been. So he changed, and ended up producing career form in 2014-15, as Barcelona won another treble. There is a fair argument he’s on a similar level now.
