His time as a footballer is done? Its cute reading his career should been over 5 years ago, when just last season in 49 games contributed to 70 goals. 51 scored 19 assisted.
Does that sound like someone who is finished?
Jesus. The things people say. This galactic freak is holding up barca by himself almost since most of his key colleagues either declined (Pique, Busquets) or are injured or stopped scoring (suarez). The rest monumental waste of resources. As soon as he leaves or retires, this circus level management/board they have will turn Barca into a bigger joke then last 5 years Man U.
Don't go off topic. Nobody said his career is over, yet his time as a footaballer is over. I said that if those other 10 players ain't playing for him, he's pretty much done as he is. I also referred on e-sports where your physique or stamina doesn't play that big of a role, but we're talking about football where it certainly does and when it comes to Messi, he's probably the most carried player around the field of any team in 2020. Find me a player who does less running, work on the pitch? He should be beating his opponents left n right considering he's facing a guy who already has 9km logged on his waist, while he might have 4.5km and completely recovered from the last spurt. He has all the players stealing the balls for him, feeding the balls to him, covering the running for him etc, yet you call him carrying his "team" on his shoulders? IF anything, he's being carried and it can be seen as a fact by making it individual sport, where you're only responsible for yourself without anybody running in behalf of you etc. and guy would be the most useless player out there. Too bad it's 11v11 and it's that team behind him which allows him to play any competitve sport in 2020, and it's a cold hard fact whether you want to admit it not.
That circus which is currently going on at Barca is just purely because of Messi. He might not be responsible for that, but he is the reason. You can look it at the way of literally forgetting all the long term plans just to please Messi and his intentions. If Messi wasn't in there, they would have never done such a stupid business moves as they have done, but since he's there and they want to protect him from leaving and keeping him happy which is completely understandable, it has become somewhat a total circus in there. Who the fuck keeps the core for 10 years and buying players left n right for +100m and not even giving them a chance to shine? That's Barca, and the players they've had have failed just because of the stupid demands on the style they want to play, to cover Messi's weaknesses while making rest of the players suffer, which then allows Messi to shine with his 6km's distance covered per match. You can look almost all the attacking players in there, Zlatan, Eto'o, Villa, Henry etc. from the past decade, then these current signings ala Coutinho, Dembele, Griezmann etc. Look at the names, absolute legends of the game who went to Barca just to fail, because you'd need to protect Messi way too much. I don't even want to go on NT stuff, or Barca bringing in these Tito Martines's and stuff from Barca B to coach their actual team, or bringing some argentianian coaches from never heard places just to please Messi. I get that he's that type of a player that most likely it was right thing to do +5 years ago, but definitely hasn't worked anymore last 5 years.
One more time, he isn't done but if you want to make him look like a footballer, then make sure you get exact 10 players around him and he can still produce, but it doesn't make your team win anymore.