Madrid (AFP)

End of the suspense in Barcelona: after threatening to leave his long-standing club, Argentine superstar Lionel Messi has decided to honor the last year of his contract until June 2021, giving up a standoff.

"I will never go to trial against Barça because it is the club that I love, that has given me everything since I arrived, it is the club of my life," Lionel Messi said in a long interview with Goal.com, a media specializing in football.

The end of a soap opera that has held the football planet in suspense: after ten days of a standoff with Barça, for whom the "Pulga" (chip, in Spanish) was in contract until June 30, 2021 despite his desires for immediate departure.

A relief for the supporters and for the Catalan club, who feared to see their living legend leaving his club forever through the back door ... and a message that greatly reassured LaLiga, which has already lost the stars Neymar (in 2017 , at PSG) and Cristiano Ronaldo (in 2018, at Juventus Turin).

Messi's last match under the Blaugrana colors will therefore not be this humiliating 8-2 conceded in the quarter-final of the Champions League against Bayern Munich on August 14 in Lisbon.

This is a victory for President Josep Maria Bartomeu, criticized from all sides for his management of the club and who had put his resignation in the balance: unperturbed, Bartomeu can boast of having put Barça's interests first.

As for Leo Messi, 33, he will not join Inter Milan, Manchester City or Paris-SG, the only clubs that seemed able to afford it.

But even if this umpteenth push from Messi ended on Friday, his feud with the club is likely to last until the end of the season, or until his possible contract extension.

Because the N.10 has finally decided to stay, but in the minds of supporters and leaders, it will be difficult to erase the fact that the captain blaugrana did everything to break his contract unilaterally and abandon the ship Barça in full storm.

- Attitude -

"I will continue at Barça and my attitude is not going to change because I wanted to leave," he said.

After a sterile two-hour meeting with club leaders on Thursday, the Messi clan did everything to force negotiations around the player's departure.

Jorge Messi, the father and agent of "Leo", arrived Wednesday in the Catalan capital to defend the interests of his son, wrote this Friday a letter to Javier Tebas, the president of LaLiga (manager of pro football in Spain), for repeat to him that the release clause of EUR 700m set by Barça no longer applied.

Arguments immediately refuted by LaLiga, which had already sided with the Blaugrana club by issuing a press release last week to confirm that the clause allowing Messi to leave freely had expired on June 10, as every year.

The next step will be to see if the six-time Ballon d'Or, who voluntarily skipped the team's PCR tests on Sunday and the first training sessions since Monday, will return to the group at the Joan Gamper training center in Barcelona.

It will be necessary to observe in particular what will be his attitude towards the new trainer Ronald Koeman, whose speech precipitated his desires of departure in mid-August ... and especially what influence this decision will have on the future of his friends Arturo Vidal or Luis Suarez, dismissed by Koeman and approached by Italian clubs.

© 2020 AFP