Camp Nou: Soon after Lionel Messi left Barcelona for Paris, the Argentine’s posters were removed from the Camp Nou Stadium on Tuesday. The 34-year-old, who joined Barcelona at 13, signed a two-year deal with Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain.
With Barcelona starting a new era sans Messi, the club have started to remove all of the talisman’s pictures from its surroundings. The construction workers were seen striping down Messi’s face from the large image which also included stars like goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter-Stegen, Gerard Pique and Antoine Griezmann.
According to a Daily Mail report, the club have removed the entire poster on the side of Barcelona’s 99,000-seater stadium while works are on to take down the smaller street-side posters which have Messi’s face on them.
Workers outside Barcelona's stadium have started to remove Leo Messi from a mural @brfootball pic.twitter.com/TtJ35SCLO8
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 10, 2021
For Barcelona, Messi scored 672 goals in 778 matches winning 35 trophies in the process. “I tried to behave with humility and respect and I hope that is what remains of me when I leave the club,” Messi said during his final Barcelona press conference.
Following Messi’s departure from Barcelona, hundreds of supporters gathered in front of Camp Nou to express their sadness. Talks were also on whether Barcelona would retire Messi’s No.10 jersey as a mark of respect for the Argentine.
However, they won’t be able to do that. According to Spanish La Liga rules, the teams must assign their 25-member squads the numbers 1-25 for each league campaign. If Barcelona decides to retire Messi’s No.10 shirt, they would lose a player in their match-day squad in the upcoming season.
