It had to end sometime. Everybody understood that. But not like this. Acrimoniously. Contested. With lawyers involved.
It was long assumed that it would end where it had begun two decades earlier, at Barcelona. Everyone thought so. Barca did. And Lionel Messi did, too. He said for years that his wish was to end his career at the club that took him in as an undersized 13-year-old and offered to pay for the growth hormone that his Argentine Club, Newell’s Old Boys, wouldn’t cover.
By all appearances, it will end elsewhere.
The soccer world felt blindsided when news got out last Tuesday that Messi had informed Barcelona that he was exercising a clause in his contract to void its final season.