La Liga - Messi: I want Fabregas at Barcelona
Reuters - Thu, 05 Aug 09:52:00 2010
Lionel Messi wanted Maradona to stay on as Argentina coach and is looking forward to playing in the same club side as Spain's Cesc Fabregas one day.
The World Player of the Year was part of the Argentina squad that Maradona led to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in South Africa a month ago before the former captain was let go by the Argentine FA last week.
"I certainly did not want him to leave, I hoped he would stay," said Messi ahead of the Spanish champions' pre-season friendly against Beijing Guoan on Saturday.
"But this is football. There are always many uncertainties."
Messi also made his feelings plain about Barcelona transfer target Fabregas, who is reported to be angling for a move away from Arsenal and back to his home city.
"I'm very much looking forward to playing with Fabregas as part of the same team one day," he said.
Barcelona face the Chinese champions in the Bird's Nest stadium on Saturday, exactly two years after the spectacular opening ceremony kicked off the Beijing Olympics.
The 23-year-old has good memories of the stadium having won Olympic gold with the Argentina under-23 team in a final victory over Nigeria in the 90,000-seater arena two years ago.
The match will be Barcelona's second match on their tour of Asia after the 5-2 victory over a South Korean K-League All Stars side in Seoul on Wednesday.
Messi came on after half-an-hour and quickly found his scoring touch with two goals in the last three minutes of the first half before sitting out the second period.
His appearance was the subject of some controversy with pressure from the match promoter forcing manager Pep Guardiola to reverse his decision not to play Messi, who had just returned from holiday.
Guardiola, who is without his eight Spanish World Cup winners on the Asian tour, said Messi would definitely get on the pitch on Saturday and the player himself was eager to turn out.
"As a player I always want to play," he said. "There is no problem with my physical condition and I haven't had any problems in training."
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Who the hell does Messi think he is he isnt fit to be on the same field as Tommy Lawton, Stan Mathews or Tom Finney.Best Player in the world, my arse.!
And I'm also tired of this bulls3it. Which country has the best league in the world?. Uffff quite hard to say actually. But what if... yeah, what if the best teams of the last, let's say twenty years (so we could use the IFFHS list), best twenty teams of Europe play a regular league, playing each weekend against each other's?. A real Champions league with the real best teams at present. And let's say the Europa league were a four small twelve teams league played as usual, amid the week, cause those teams also have to play their respective domestic leagues. Then four teams would reach a final four between them but the good thing is that being the first of their sub-groups they could take the position of the worse four teams in the champions league the following year. Thus this would become a real test to see who is the best team regardless of which domestic league they a from. Isn't this a great idea worthly to be considered?. And what's more, don't we want to see real tough matches between real contenders every week, just imagine it, R. Madrid., M. United, F. C. Barcelona., A. C. Milan, Bayen Munchen, etc. all of them playing at a regular basis against each other every single week !!!!!!.
hey dean, u listen to me mother fukker, how dare u say that, it should be ur legs broken and shot at u @#$%, i hope this eurosport website bans u for life from adding a comment.
I'll faithfully pray that Messi breaks his leg this coming season... Barcelona should go and play the Africans Nations Cup.. If you guys know what I mean..
How can you possibly say that Lionel Messi is a loser? Sure he didn't win the world cup but he never had an easy life grown up and Leo works super hard so Hi hater!
And i want messi to retire,we cant all get our wishes
Barca dont want Cesc or they would offer £50 million, End of story.
Also why dont FiFa charge Barca for tapping up another clubs player via team members talking to Cesc and the press. At the very least they should tell barca to stop their players tapping up in the clubs name.
Oh of course FiFa will not do anything because one of the clubs involved is english, and everyone knows what FiFa think about english teams
FiFa beware if english teams withdrew from all FiFa games, the competition would fail to pay for its self, FiFa need the cash rich english clubs/supporters more than english clubs need FiFa.
FiFa -- english teams need to see you being fair, or your days are numbered
Yawn.
Messi also wanted to win World Cup!!! He is a looser like his club... If they really want him make an offer like Real made for Ronaldo, which Fergi could not refuse....
Sigh.
what u read here are all made up by media...one story told from one will be different when reaches the others....what messi said was cesc is a great player and he likes playing alongside great players...thats all...he did not urge fab to sign for barca...besides,it was the media who asked messi about this,not messi who said himself...same goes to the other barca players...barca tried to keep it as quiet as possible but the media try their best to blurt things out...all blame is on the media...
Adil - if you came across as financially astute, then we may have been impressed with your obviously selective choice of rather large words - but as you think us Gooners are envious of a club that has to "borrow" money to pay their player's wages - I can only suggest you put away the dictionary and find a "dummy's guide to accounts" and then proceed to send it to your beloved Barca FC.
@ Adil - and you an your Barca whiners, don`t you have anything batter to do then harass Arsenal and Cesc every day for the last 6 months!? As a Gunner I am fed up with this shameful campaign and I want it to stop! it`s in Wengers hands, that`s what Fab said a few weeks ago but your club don`t care. You keep harassing and unsettling him so he would turn against Arsenal and we had to let him go for a small fee, but I think that Fab is a good lad and knows better than to turn against the club that made him a man and a player he is today! And it is not envy it was respect, and now it is disgust!
Yes Adil, we wish we where as bankrupt as Barcelona LOL! :-)
Messi is looking forward to playing in the same club side as Spain's Cesc Fabregas, OMG is Messi moving to Arsenal :)))) =))
it'll be nice to watch barca lose games this coming season coz of their arrogance.
its not what you want
Don't you whingers have anything better to do than insult Barça?
If one were vaguely psycyologically oriented, one might detect something like envy in these messages. Hmmm.
At least Torres from Liverpool had the common politeness of saying in the press he will stay at Liverpool and he will give his full support to the club.
Put Cesc up for sale at £ 50 million and stop Barcelona sh@t heads from continuing this talk, now is the time for FIFA to penalise Barcelona for this.
Its simple Barcelona do not have the right money for this player so their paying this stupid game.
Barcelona are insolvent football club. ;-)
Stop this, he might be going on next transfer window.. but stop this nonsense for god shake will u
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