Lionel Messi feels Real Madrid was not the best team in the Champions League this season and that his PSG side was by far the better side when the two met in the round of 16.
Real Madrid won their 14th European Champions League title as Vinicius Junior scored the solitary goal in the final to beat a dominant Liverpool in Paris on Saturday night.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side had already defeated Premier League rivals Chelsea and Manchester City en route to the final at the Stade de France.
But the most dramatic moment of their run to the final came in the last-16 contest against PSG when Karim Benzema’s blistering 17-minute hat-trick at the Santiago Bernabeu changed the second leg in Los Blancos’ favour.
Everything pointed toward a PSG win after Kylian Mbappe struck first in Madrid to push the aggregate in the Parisiens’ favour. Punters on live betting with the Betway app experienced a roller coaster before the La Liga side turned things around.
It was again another season of failure for the French champions in Europe, but the Argentine, 34, believes that Madrid was not the greatest team in the championship this season.
“The Real Madrid game killed us. The best team doesn’t always win,” Messi told reporters. Madrid were underdogs with top bookmakers after falling in the first leg and trailing PSG again at the Bernabeu before the Benzema magic.
“Without taking anything away from Madrid, because they are the champions of Europe and they’re always there or thereabouts, but they weren’t the best team of this Champions League.
“The Champions League is about situations, key moments, psychological moments that take a team, where the slightest error can eliminate you and those who are best prepared for those situations end up winning or reaching the final.”
Messi also pointed out the psychological edge of Real Madrid as one of the driving factors in their European success. The Argentine spent many years in Spain and understands what winning against Madrid would have meant to him as a former Barcelona player.
“I know what Real Madrid is; I’ve lived it for many years, all my life, up close. And I knew that could happen because they score a goal out of nowhere, and it automatically changes the match.
If a strange move happens or a goal happens, it changes again, and I already knew that it could happen, and it happened to us and to all of the teams that they played — and it is not the first time that it has happened.
The former Barcelona talisman finds himself in unfamiliar territories after a disappointing season in the French capital, where he has scored just six goals in Ligue 1. There are rumours of a possible return to Spain, but nothing to report so far.
On his failed new deal with Barcelona and adapting to new life in France, Messi said, “It was a summer of complete happiness and one where I thought everything would stay the same at Barcelona and in my life and then what happened and it was tough,” he added.
“It was a tough change, a challenging year. The adaptation wasn’t easy. It’s not easy after a lifetime in the same place at my age.
“It’s one thing to do it when you’re younger and you want to, but I didn’t want to and didn’t imagine or expect it.”
His lowest point on Messi’s time in France came during a match against Bordeaux in March when he and Neymar were targeted by a section of PSG fans following their elimination from the Champions League in the hands of guess who? Real Madrid.
Whether Messi remains in France or moves back to Barcelona, next season presents him another chance to redeem himself domestically and across the continent.
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