Lionel Messi’s first press conference as a PSG player in full

Today, Lionel Messi was presented to the world as a new PSG player, and the Argentine also held a press conference to seal his new move and share his thoughts. 

The player started the conference by making his feelings known, and stating that he is as ambitious as ever about the future. 

“I’m very happy. Everyone knows my departure from Barcelona was very hard after many years but as soon as I arrived here, the happiness is huge. I’m excited and want to train because I can’t hold back the urge to meet my team-mates.”

“I want to thank the club for their treatment. I arrive at an ambitious club and I see that we are prepared to fight for everything, that’s why I’m here.

“I have a will to play and I still want to play and win as much as I wanted it at the first moment of my career. This club is ready to fight for all the trophies, this is my goal, to keep growing, keep winning titles and that’s why I’ve come here to this club. I hope we can make it happen.”

The 34-year-old also laid down his aims for the move by saying that he wants to win the Champions League with his new club. 

“I come to a team that is already put together, it was close to winning the Champions League. I’m here to help and with more desire than ever. My goal is to be able to lift another Champions League and I come to the ideal place to achieve it.”

He was also asked about the prospect of possibly facing Barcelona in the Champions League again, to which he had this to say: 

“I don’t know if we will face Barcelona. It would be very nice to go back to Barcelona. I hope it would be with fans given the pandemic. It would be very strange to play there in another shirt but it can happen and we will see.”

A rather interesting question popped up towards the end of the conference, asked to PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi regarding the Financial Fair Play rule and how PSG are maintaining such a star-studded squad: 

“Thank you very much for your question, I was waiting for it. We follow the FFP regulations since day. Before we do anything we look at it with our commercial and legal people. When you see we’re signing Leo, that means we have the capacity to sign him.”

Lastly, the player was asked about Mauricio Pochettino as the coach and whether that played a part in him making the decision. 

“I know the coach very well. The fact that he is Argentinian, it helped from the beginning, it was important in my decision-making.”

Messi was then presented to the fans, and made his way to the pitch. He will wear the number 30 shirt at PSG, which he wore at the start of his Barcelona career as well.