On Monday, Lionel Messi sat at his home in Castelldefels, a beach town in the Barcelona suburbs, waiting for his move to Paris Saint-Germain to develop.
It was revealed last Thursday that he could not return to Barcelona -- negotiations had been ongoing with the French club since that day, when Barca announced "economic obstacles" prevented them from formalising the five-year contract they had agreed with Messi -- and the world's media were waiting for his next move. International news agencies had video journalists stationed at his house, at the airports in Barcelona and Paris, at the Paris hospital where PSG's new signings typically undergo their medicals, and at the French club's headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt.