Following a stuttering start to life as a Paris Saint-Germain player, Lionel Messi has now explained why he struggled so much during his first season at the club after his move from Barcelona.
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The seven-time Ballon d'Or winner becoming a PSG player in August 2021 was a situation that was, at least in some part, out of his hands.
Barcelona were in a crippling financial situation at the time, and keeping the club's greatest-ever player would seemingly have only made the situation worse.
After briefly becoming a free agent, Messi decided that Les Parisiens would be the best place to continue his iconic career.
However, what was meant to be the beginning of spectacular new adventure in the French capital ended up beginning as quite the disappointment.
Messi's inaugural season in Paris ended with him scoring just 11 goals and providing 15 assists in 34 matches.
While that may be regarded as a good season for some, for a man who regularly scored 35+ goals at Barca, it was an underwhelming return.
Speaking in a recent interview, the 35-year-old explained why he did not immediately adapt to life in France.
"The boys [his sons] are the ones who best adapted," the Rosario native told ESPN Argentina.
"It was what worried us the most and it was the easiest of all... for them to start school, for them to make new friends, it was something very normal, very simple.
"We suffered a lot because of that. I remember leaving them at school and leaving crying, suffering for them and the truth is that we screwed up our heads because it was spectacular.
"In Barcelona we had our lives made up, arriving in a new place with a different language, it's not easy.
"We thought they were going to have a bad time and nothing to do with it, quite the opposite."
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Messi seems to have now found his feet at the Parc des Princes, having already scored eight goals and assisted eight strikes in the 13 games he's played for PSG so far this season.
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