Former PSG Goalkeeper Not Surprised by Start of Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi is off to an excellent start this 2022-23 football season with Paris Saint-Germain. The 35-year-old is in a playmaker role but is also seeing his goal tallies increase.

During the 2021-22 football season, the Argentine struggled to find the back of the net consistently, but this year that has changed. Former PSG goalkeeper Jérôme Alonzo explained the night and day difference during Monday’s edition of “L’ÉQUIPE de Greg.

“We could all see that he was not happy to be there,” Alonzo said. “I saw a lot of matches, matches at the Parc where he really wasn’t very far from me. You see the guy was there, dragging his spleen. 

“He did not ask to come to PSG. […] It’s much more complex than that. In the brain of a champion who has been uprooted from his heart family, which is Barça. We could see that he had come to PSG by default.”

Despite some being surprised by Messi’s form, Alonzo isn’t one of them, noting that last year’s performance from the Argentine is what stunned him. The former PSG goalkeeper states that the veteran forward’s mindset is different. 

Alonzo points out that even as Messi is in his mid-30s, he has shown flashes of his former self at various points in the game to tilt the fixture in PSG’s favor. 

The Argentine might not be having a good game, but in an instant moment, that can change, as he’s shown this season. 

“And afterward, he said to himself: “Hey, we’re not bad there. And then, as long as you are there, you might as well be good,” Alonzo added. “Me, it is not this Messi that surprises me, but that of last year. There I find it in its place, at his own pace, at his age where his game evolves. 

“Against Lyon, it was obviously not a good 90 minutes. The flashes of genius are punctual, by sequence. Of course, we enjoy ourselves, and the front three are essential. But it’s not the Messi that surprises me; it’s the one from last season. Even in a flash, he turns you a match in Ligue 1.”

Tags Lionel Messi
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