BARCELONA – Barcelona and PSG remember Johan Cruyff and Sergi Roberto. Ronaldo, Neymar, Verratti, Marquinhos, Rafinha and even Icardi. And Messi, of course. They place Nasser Al-Khelaïfi and Josep Maria Bartomeu on the map. Eric Abidal and even Laurent Blanc. The relationship between the two clubs is the story of an enemy that made them both inseparable and irreconcilable. And that they will meet again this Tuesday at the Camp Nou in a new chapter that will not be the last.
Their paths cross when Leo Messi is a prominent protagonist in the last months of his contract with Barça and being staged by PSG as a monumental, free signing, and this has provoked many complaints from the Camp Nou environment.
The Argentine star is just the latest name in a long-standing relationship between the two clubs that first met on the field in 1995, the last in 2017 and which led them to a deep enmity that reached its peak with the departure of Neymar to Paris and which has been badly reproduced with all the speculation and statements in recent weeks about a Messi who has remained silent, without wanting to fuel an obvious controversy.
It was PSG, coached by Luis Fernández, the team that fired Johan Cruyff from the Champions League. Second in the previous season, Barça met the French team in the quarterfinals of the 1994-95 season. Challenged the first leg at the Camp Nou (1-1 with goals from Korneyev and Weah), 2-1 at the Parc des Princes, PSG drew Bakero’s initial goal through Raí and Guérin, causing the elimination of the Barça player in what was the Last Cruyff’s match as a coach in the top continental competition.
The final of the late Recopa de Europa was his second face to face. Disputed on May 14, 1997, the victory fell to Barcelona due to a penalty converted by Ronaldo, in his only season as a Barça player under Bobby Robson.
MEETING AND ENEMY
From there they did not meet again on a field until the 2012-13 season, in the quarterfinals of the Champions League that favored Barça (2-2 in Paris and 1-1 in Barcelona) in what was the first of several field matches,
always favorable to the Spanish team and which led to a future enmity, a silent war, which has been on the scene all these years.
It happened to Marquinhos and Thiago Silva, PSG’s reference defenders whom Barça wanted to sign without luck and reached the maximum with Verratti, who came to proclaim his desire to leave Paris to play for Barça against at the request of their president. resolved by his renewal and the proclamation that he would not forget the insult in what he understood as an attack on his club. And that went back in time.
In August 2017, when PSG took Neymar to Paris, paying him the termination clause, 222 million euros, and returned all the threats from Barça on their players with a masterstroke from which, even today, the club azulgrana has not recovered.
Before, on the field, they had seen three times, in a group stage and two direct eliminations in the 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons, both surpassed by the Barça club … And on May 8, 2017 as an unforgettable date, with the historic comeback (6-1) that Sergi Roberto condemned in what was, precisely, Neymar’s last great night as a Barça player.
Since then and until today, there have been few times when the Brazilian has been linked with Barça again, who tried in every way to recover him with improbable negotiations and even trips of Òscar Grau and Eric Abidal to Paris without good results. Today, it seems that the return is certainly ruled out. And, from the beginning, he will not return to the Camp Nou or as a PSG player due to his injury.
Barça and PSG will meet again on Tuesday at the Camp Nou without Ney, but probably with Rafinha, a player of the youth team from Azuñgrana who closed his loan stages signing for the French club and also with Mauro Icardi, the team Barça’s youth team on the day and today a striker for the French team. And with Messi as a Barça player. Who knows if for the last time he faced a team that longs for his signing next season.
Without an audience, but with passion in a new chapter in that long history of sports wrestling and overt enemies.