One of Chelsea’s greatest nights is one of Lionel Messi’s greatest regrets

As you may have heard, Lionel Messi has left Barcelona in what is truly an era-defining development not only in Blaugrana but in world football as well. He’s now probably set to sign with PSG, which he didn’t quite confirm in his emotional press conference yesterday, but is pretty much a done deal already.

Messi did get asked if he had any great regrets in his two decades at Barcelona — other than, you know, the current situation — and one thing he mentioned in response was not winning more Champions League trophies. Obviously, winning it four times is no small achievement (2006, 2009, 2011, 2015), but only one of those has come in the last decade, and that clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed. Barca did reach the semifinals three other times during that span, but lost to Bayern Munich (2013), Chelsea (2012), and Liverpool (2019), the latter two of which apparently weigh heavy since they were close and involved shocking second leg results: 4-0 for Liverpool to overturn a 3-0 deficit, and obviously 2-2 for Chelsea at the Camp Nou in 2012, wherein Messi himself missed a penalty.

“I would have liked to have tried to won another Champions League. We got knocked out in the semi-final against Liverpool, which stopped us getting to another final.

“We got to the semi-final against Chelsea with Pep [Guardiola] and they prevented us from getting to a final. There could have been a time where we won another Champions League, but that’s football.”

-Lionel Messi; source: Mirror

That is indeed football. As Messi’s teammate at the time and future Chelsea hero, Cesc Fàbregas would say a few years later, football is [FUNNING] unbelievable.

And if you thought this was an excuse to post highlights of that historic night in Barcelona, against “the best team European football’s ever seen” ... you were right. Take it away Alan Parry and Gary Neville! (Individual highlights: Ramires goal, Torres goal)