Messi Back Training with Barca after Ending Departure Saga

Barcelona's Lionel Messi as he arrives for training. (Reuters)
Barcelona's Lionel Messi as he arrives for training. (Reuters)
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Messi Back Training with Barca after Ending Departure Saga

Barcelona's Lionel Messi as he arrives for training. (Reuters)
Barcelona's Lionel Messi as he arrives for training. (Reuters)

Barcelona captain Lionel Messi reported for training on Monday for the first time since requesting to leave the club last month.

Messi had failed to turn up to the club’s tests for COVID-19 eight days ago and been absent from all subsequent sessions ahead of the new campaign after giving the club an official notice that he wished to leave.

But the club’s all-time top scorer finally appeared at the Joan Gamper training ground ahead of an evening session, his first under new coach Ronald Koeman, after taking a test for the novel coronavirus at his home on Sunday.

Messi, 33, revealed last Friday in an interview with Goal.com that he was staying at Barca for the coming season as he did not wish to face a court case with the club where he has spent his entire career over a disputed release clause in his contract.

The Argentine claimed in an official letter that he was free to leave the club unilaterally and without a transfer fee owing to the clause.

But Barca and the league’s organizing body responded by saying the clause was no longer valid and that the only way to free him from his contract was by paying a release clause of 700 million euros ($827.68 million).

Messi, however, will be free to leave free of charge next June unless he pens a new deal with Barca.

Barca, who will be looking to reclaim the La Liga title after surrendering it to Real Madrid last season, are sitting out the first two weeks of the new campaign which begins on Friday due to reaching the Champions League quarter-finals.

Koeman’s side will instead play pre-season friendlies against Gimnastic de Tarragona on Saturday Sept. 12 and Girona on Sept. 16 before their first league game at home to Villarreal on Sept. 27.



Man United Needs Near Perfect End to Season to Avoid its Worst Premier League Points Total


Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes during the English Premier League soccer match between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United at the City Ground, Nottingham, England, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Mike Egerton/P via AP)
Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes during the English Premier League soccer match between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United at the City Ground, Nottingham, England, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Mike Egerton/P via AP)
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Man United Needs Near Perfect End to Season to Avoid its Worst Premier League Points Total


Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes during the English Premier League soccer match between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United at the City Ground, Nottingham, England, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Mike Egerton/P via AP)
Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes during the English Premier League soccer match between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United at the City Ground, Nottingham, England, Tuesday, April 1, 2025. (Mike Egerton/P via AP)

Manchester United needs to win seven of its eight remaining Premier League games this season just to match its worst-ever points total in the modern era.

That's how bad it's got for the record 20-time English champion in a crisis-hit campaign.

“We have to get it right fast,” head coach Ruben Amorim said after Tuesday's 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest.

United’s lowest points total since the Premier League began in 1992 was 58 in the 2021-22 season. It is currently on 37, with 24 more points to play for, The AP news reported.

Seven wins would give Amorim’s team the 21 points needed to reach 58.

To put that in context, United has not won back-to-back games in the league all season. The last time it managed that was in the final two games of the previous campaign.

Amorim, meanwhile, has only won six and lost nine of his 19 league games since taking over in November. United has won 10 in total.

New lows The loss to Forest was United's 13th in the league this term. Last year's total of 14 defeats was the club's worst in the Premier League era.

Amorim said in January that this might be the worst team in United's history and things have only got worse since then.

While there is little danger this season of one of the world's most storied teams being relegated from the top flight for the first time since 1974, it will almost certainly hit new lows in the modern era.

United's lowest league position in the Premier League was the eighth-place finish overseen by former manager Erik ten Hag last year. It seems unlikely Amorim will be able to better that, with his team eight points below eighth-place Fulham.

Based on form, the likelier scenario is United finishes the season even lower than it already is, with Tottenham, Everton and West Ham all within touching distance.

Years of decline This season continues United's onfield decline since managerial great Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 after winning the club's last league title.

It was his and United's 13th championship of the first 20 years of the Premier League. The club hasn't won another since.

Its lowest finish in the Premier League under Ferguson was third.

Goal drought Among United's many problems this season have been a lack of goals. The Forest game was the 11th time it has failed to score in the league - prompting a desperate Amorim to play center back Harry Maguire in attack as he went in search of a late equalizer.

Maguire came closer than any of his teammates to scoring when seeing a stoppage time effort cleared off the line.

“We deserved more in this game, that is clear, but it was our fault. We need to be better in the last third," Amorim said.

Rasmus Hojlund, a striker signed from Atalanta for $82 million last season, has only scored eight goals in his 41 games in all competitions this term.

Strike partner Joshua Zirkzee has scored six in 45 appearances. United has scored 37 in the league all season with a goal difference of minus-4.

Amorim, however, insists he sees improvement.

“I don’t lie to myself," he said. "Everybody can say whatever they want to say, I see some things, but we need to win games.”