The end of the affair: after Messi, Barcelona will never be the same | Sid Lowe

While he may one day regret it if he leaves, the club certainly will. How did they let it come to this, is the question all Barcelona fans will be asking

The end is getting nearer, Lionel Messi said the night he collected his sixth Ballon d’Or. It was hard enough for Barcelona fans to accept then; it is harder now, and not just because eight months on it is closer and more real than ever. Deep down they all knew he would go some time quite soon – “I am 32,” he said – they just didn’t need reminding, to be suddenly confronted by reality. What no one imagined was that he would go this soon or this way, that it would come to this: an end quite so bitter, quite so broken.

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