Barcelona coach: Lionel Messi in touch regularly, would make team better

Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez, a longtime teammate of Lionel Messi's when the two starred together as players at the famed Spanish club, recently reiterated his desire to see the 35-year-old Messi back at Barcelona and revealed the two are in frequent communication.

Hernandez is fresh off winning his first La Liga title as Barcelona's coach, a dramatic reversal of fortune after the club had struggled mightily on and off the pitch in recent years. The nadir of that rough patch came in 2021 when a tearful Messi bid farewell to the club he had spent his entire senior career with because Barcelona could no longer pay his wages under La Liga financial rules. 

Messi has spent the past two club seasons with Paris Saint-Germain, but the French powerhouse has failed to live up to lofty Champions League expectations with a superstar trio of Argentina captain Messi, France captain Kylian Mbappé and former Brazil captain Neymar. Messi is widely expected to depart PSG once his contract expires this summer, and reports have connected him to a possible return to Barcelona as well as possible moves to the Saudi Pro League or Major League Soccer.

The latter two moves would either reunite Messi with longtime rival Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia or make Messi the latest in a long line of aging European soccer superstars to play their final years against relatively lesser competition in North America. But Hernandez insisted to Spanish media outlet Diario Sport that Messi's triumph in leading Argentina to a 2022 World Cup victory proves he can still play at a high level and help the current version of Barcelona defend its La Liga title and make a run in the 2023-24 Champions League.

"In terms of what I am in charge of, the football side of things, there are no doubts that if Messi comes back he is going to help us," Xavi said via ESPN.

"I have made that clear to [Barcelona] president [Joan Laporta]. I don't have a single doubt about that because he is still a difference-maker, he is still hungry, he's a winner and he is a leader. … He brings talent. He is capable of providing the final pass, taking free kicks, scoring goals. He is a differential player in the final third."

Xavi, who starred at Barcelona as a midfielder himself in his playing days, believes Messi can function more as an attacking midfielder in his current form as well as the winger or "false nine" positions he used to play in his first stint at Barcelona. Yet the coach also admitted that despite his frequent conversations with Messi, he does not know what the global soccer icon will ultimately choose this summer as the next phase of his club career.

"It's difficult to put yourself in the shoes of a player who has won it all," Xavi said. "I don't know what doubts he might have about coming back this summer. Maybe [he could have doubts] because it's another project now and because important players who he had a good relationship with, like [Sergio Busquets] and Jordi [Alba], are leaving. I don't know, I am not in his head.

"With the relationship I have with him, I think I have been very clear. The door is open for him here. It depends on his personal decision."

It also might depend on whether Barcelona can clear enough financial space to sign Messi just two years after their failure to do so resulted in his emotional departure. The departures of longtime stars Busquets and Alba could help in that capacity, and Laporta, the club's president, has vowed to do "everything we can" to provide a way for Messi to return.