The Lionel Messi transfer saga begins now - The Warm-Up

Hooooooooooo boy. We’re still at the gossip stage, but the gossip is this: Lionel Messi wants to leave Barcelona as soon as humanly possible. Not next season, when his contract expires. This summer. Now. Ten minutes ago.

That’s according to Marcelo Bechler, who you may remember from such stories as “Neymar! To PSG! It’s going to happen!” He was right there, and thinking about it, that whole situation was a lot stranger than this one. That was a complex psychodrama of status and celebrity, a backyard not big enough for two. This is just the obvious thing to do after the 8-2 — eight! two! — and all that led to it.

While we wait for the story to get going, or to dissolve into a new contract after the entire board and coaching staff resigns in shame, the Warm-Up is thinking about Messi’s possible destination. Manchester City seems the obvious call: they have piles and piles of money; they have Pep Guardiola; and they appear to be run by sensible, competent people. Messi looks like a man in need of some sensible competence.

But this is Messi. Every club that can afford to have a go, will have a go. (Every club that can’t will make a joke about it on Twitter.) And in the interests of chaos, we’re most excited to see if Real Madrid get involved.

They’ve got a decent sales pitch, right? Come and work on winning the Champions League with Zinedine Zidane; come and work on your short iron game with Gareth Bale. It’ll be funny. Luis Figo would like a word. Don’t worry about the pig’s head thing.

Would it make as much sense for Messi as City? Probably not. Would it snap the internet in half? Absolutely. And that, we think, is the priority here.

The entertainment provided by this rejigged European format has led to calls for single-leg knockouts to become the new norm. It’s not hard to see why: even the predictable results have been dramatic, while the shocks have been out of this world. Oh, Pep! You’ve Pepped it again!

The intention of these single-leg, one-location festivals of knockout football was to create something that felt a bit like a World Cup — a good one, not one of the boring ones — and that has worked so far. But sadly, we don’t think they’ll be allowed to continue: as soon as fans can return, the second legs will be back as well.

Two reasons. The first is practical: a Champions League night is a big night. It means high ticket prices and a packed ground; it means atmosphere and money. Europe’s big clubs can rely on a couple of these season, and won’t want to give them up.

And second, well: the shocks are the problem. We like them. The big clubs? Definitely not. Barcelona are obviously beyond help, but if City had another leg to flip this two-goal deficit, they’d probably still be favourites even allowing for Guardiola’s neuroses. Shorten the ties and you increase the chances of something chaotic happening, of somebody losing that shouldn’t be losing. And that is precisely what the Champions League was created to avoid.

Oranges. Barbers. And for some mysterious reason, the Europa League. Sevilla did that thing they do again, at Manchester United’s expense, and so advance to their sixth final in the last 15 seasons. They haven’t lost a single one.

It’s Julen Lopetegui we feel really pleased for. Why, it’s only a couple of years ago that he got sacked by Spain the day before a World Cup, then got sacked by Real Madrid five months later. You’d have understood if he’d walked away from the game right then and there, grown a moustache and gone to live on a sunny island far from anywhere.

As for United, they will tell themselves they did enough to win and they’ll certainly have a bit of a point. But after former Newcastle oddity Luuk de Jong scored Sevilla’s winner, they barely mustered a shot in response. At least they’ll get a rest now — oh, how they need one — and the club can get on with what’s really important: failing to sign Jadon Sancho for weeks and weeks on end.

Harry Maguire works on a higher level to mere mortals. When they zig, he zags. When they play checkers, he’s playing chess. In five dimensions. When they— oh, hang on, they’ve scored. Drat.

Today, for no reason at all, we’re looking back at Lionel Messi’s first game — though not his full debut — for Barcelona, a cameo against José Mourinho’s Porto in a pre-season friendly. Does alright, doesn’t he? You can see why they stuck with him.

Over on the Guardian, Annemarie Postma has a glowing profile of Sarina Wiegman, the new head coach of England women, who oversaw the Netherlands’ Euro 2017 triumph. Looking forward to Fran Kirby expressing her desire to win the World Cup through the medium of mime.

Tonight we find out which of Inter and Shakhtar will be losing to Sevilla in the Europa League final.