For a player so widely known for his low centre of gravity, Lionel Messi is doing a good job of dwarfing the football world right now.
Barcelona are virtually collapsing in on themselves as the little Argentine icon gravitates towards Manchester City and the reality hits that a two-decade association with the club, one in which has seen him score 634 goals and claim 34 trophies, is coming to an end.
Although we are still so close to this rapidly unfolding story, it does feel like it could be the most seismic transfer in the history of the game.
How would it rank with other monumental moves? Well, let’s take a peek back in time.
Cristiano Ronaldo – Manchester United to Real Madrid
The obvious starting point is Messi’s eternal rival Ronaldo, but the big difference between the two is timeline. In Ronaldo’s case, his affair with Real Madrid started at least a year before he actually moved to the Bernabeu in 2009, and so the shock wasn’t quite as eruptive. After leading United to a Champions League and Premier League double, Ronaldo made clear his desire to play for Los Blancos and a summer-long saga only ended after the Portuguese agreed to Sir Alex Ferguson’s request that he remain for another season. It was pretty much an open secret that a gentleman’s agreement was in place for Ronaldo’s departure in 2009 and so when Real did make a world-record offer, it was largely expected. “He extended his contract with United but he did it with the commitment to come to Real Madrid the year after – he said, ‘I am going.’ We knew for sure he would be coming, which is why we signed the commitment with a €30 million penalty for both parties,” revealed Real’s former president Ramon Calderon to The Athletic earlier this year.
Neymar – Barcelona to PSG
Messi has pulled the final Jenga piece in Barcelona’s structural collapse, but the first block was undoubtedly removed by Neymar. The club was left on unsteady foundations when the Brazilian caused a shockwave by dramatically leaving for PSG in 2017. Indeed, perhaps Messi’s greatest achievement is not in illuminating his own talent, but in managing to conceal Barca’s faults since Neymar left. They had invested heavily in Neymar, both financially and institutionally, as he was expected to take over the leading role when Messi departed. Few believed he would actually leave, Gerard Pique’s ‘Se Queda’ post lives in infamy, and that complacency from the club ultimately allowed Neymar to slide away. The activation of his €222 million release clause has since warped the entire transfer market and so the fee, location and talent marks out an historic transfer, the trauma of which Barca still feels today.
Luis Figo – Barcelona to Real Madrid
The anger around Messi’s departure will be intense and vitriolic, but very little of it will be directed at the player himself. Figo, though, felt the full rage of Barcelona when he was unveiled as a Real Madrid player on July 24, 2000. At that time, he was not just Barca’s best player, but the best period, and the Portuguese was primed for the Ballon d’Or that year. Then he left. Politics framed the narrative of this transfer, and when politics is involved, someone gets burned and in this case it was Barca. In short, Florentino Perez promised he would bring Figo to the Bernabeu if he was elected as club president. A pre-contract agreement was lined up on the condition Perez’s bid was successful, although at the time Figo denied the existence of any such deal – a natural precaution in case the presidential bid failed. Perez won the election, Figo had to sign because of the financial penalties of not doing so and chaos ensued. Barca went into freefall and Figo was eviscerated on his returns to the Camp Nou, most famously having a pig’s head thrown at him.
Robinho – Real Madrid to Manchester City
One of the reasons Real Madrid were able to finance a world-record move for Cristiano Ronaldo was through the €40m sale of Robinho. However, Los Blancos thought the Brazilian would move to Chelsea and pretty much everyone in football, including Robinho himself, figured the same. Then on deadline day in the 2008 summer transfer window in a crazy sequence of events, Manchester City, freshly pumped with financial muscle after the completed takeover by Abu Dhabi United Group on the same day, wrestled Robinho away from Stamford Bridge. It was a flag-on-the-moon type signing, one which signalled the intent of City’s new owners to become a global superclub and marked the first signpost on their path to claiming that status. Chelsea were the only team in the race to sign him, City had finished 9th the season prior and at the time Robinho was the poster boy for the biggest club in world football. It was quite a surprise alright. Even after signing for City, Robinho still mistakenly thought the team in blue he’d be playing for was Chelsea…
Ronaldo – Barcelona to Inter
The debate over Ronaldo’s transfer out of Barcelona still rages to this very day. On the player’s side, he never wanted to leave after a quite absurd 1996-97 campaign which saw him smash 47 goals in 49 games in all competitions. On Barca’s side, a new contract had been agreed but ‘money-hungry agents’ coerced the Brazilian into a more lucrative switch to Inter. Either way, Ronaldo broke his own world record, set the summer prior, to make the switch and after the season he had – El Fenomeno emerged as the youngest ever to claim the FIFA World Player of the Year award – plus the manner of the exit, it was seismic. The move was doused with so much bitterness. Ronaldo was mesmeric for Barca, but his partying, questioning of boss Bobby Robson’s tactics and suckling agents meant he alienated supporters, to the point Luis Enrique was voted their player of the year that season. He departed a traitor in their eyes as he missed crucial games while on duty with Brazil after the Spanish domestic season ran into late June, Barca lost to Hercules without him and gifted the Liga title to Real Madrid.
