What’s Next for Lionel Messi?

On Tuesday, football star Lionel Messi told FC Barcelona that he wants to leave. Messi met the team’s new manager Ronald Koeman last Thursday and according to RAC1.cat, he told him that “he does not see his future at Barça clearly.”

Failing to win La Liga this year, the 8-2 humiliation against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals and other disappointing exits from that competition in recent years are some of the reasons why Messi decided to go.

Per The Daily Mirror, Manchester City is ready to do “whatever it takes” to reunite Messi with Pep Guardiola. According to Moisés Llorens and Rodrigo Fáez from ESPN FC, Manchester City are already crunching the numbers to see if they can sign Messi.

Would Messi and Ronaldo co-exist at Juventus or at another team? Messi downplayed the alleged rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo and suggested that he would pass to him if they played together.

“I guess so, in the end, yes,” Messi told Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo, while praising Ronaldo, calling him a “predatory striker.” “It’s normal that he continues to score, he is a predatory striker, he loves to score, any day he plays he will score. He has many good attributes as a forward and at the minimum he converts,” Messi concluded.

Playing for Pep Guardiola again can be appealing for Messi but keep an eye on teams like Juventus, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain. I wouldn’t be surprised if Messi joins Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus or somewhere else.