Marco Verratti, 32-year-old midfielder now with Al-Duhail SC (Qatar), spoke to La Gazzetta dello Sport as he buys a major stake in Pescara, his formative club. The former Paris Saint-Germain man (2012-2023) took the opportunity to look back on a very special episode: Lionel Messi’s arrival in 2021, which he experienced from Ibiza, along with Neymar in particular.
It was “a fantastic evening that became almost magical”.
“I remember a fantastic evening that became almost magical. We were in Ibiza, Neymar came up to me and told me we were having dinner with Leo Messi tonight. So there we were, Leo, Paredes, Ney and Di Maria.
We chatted and had a good time. And we encouraged him, so to speak, to come to Paris. Late in the evening, we said goodbye to him, and the next day we read that there were problems between him and Barcelona.
“Incredible: from having him for dinner to having him as a teammate.”
Then, in the early afternoon, Neymar called me: “Marco, Leo’s coming to stay with us.” Incredible: from having him for dinner to having him as a teammate. A magical evening. Neymar? A golden boy, generous, humble, who gives everything to the people he loves, we always keep in touch.”
It’s one of the little stories of soccer, with players seeing and talking to each other off the pitch. Sometimes, friendships even develop without the players being at the same club. But the timing here is particularly noteworthy. Of course, there’s no guarantee that it was this dinner that led Messi to sign for PSG.
But perhaps the choice was simpler once there was a stalemate with Barcelona. In any case, things went very quickly for Verratti. Like all soccer fans, he must have been delighted to be able to trade with such an outstanding player. The next day, he learned that he would be playing alongside him.
Unfortunately, Messi’s Parisian adventure will not be remembered fondly by Parisian fans. Perhaps it even led to Verratti’s departure, at the end of a very mixed period at PSG that prompted the club to review its strategy.
