Seeing Lionel Messi in any shirt other than FC Barcelona's, the club he had been at since he was 13, will take some getting used to.
The story of his transfer to Paris Saint-Germain is all the more interesting because of how quickly it came about. Messi was all set to stay in Barcelona having agreed in principle to take a pay cut and sign a five-year deal, but La Liga and their spending rules had other ideas and effectively forbid the club from making the deal official. That set in motion a whirlwind five days that started with a phone call to Messi's father on Thursday, 5th August and that ended with Messi receiving a frenzied welcome in Paris on Tuesday to sign the deal.
It is one of the most momentous footballing moments in my time, unarguably the greatest player of all time. A man -- and there is plenty of evidence that he perhaps isn't a man at all but has come from another world -- who won everything with Barcelona, many times, and broke every record and invented a few new ones including; the most goals in La Liga, a La Liga and European league season, most hat-tricks in La Liga and the UEFA Champions League, and most assists in La Liga, a La Liga season and the Copa América. The trophy cabinet is equally astonishing with ten La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey and four UEFA Champions Leagues.
The point is that this isn't just any old transfer, nor really a transfer at all, but something different, an otherworldly figure setting down in another part of the world destined to change it beyond all recognition.
And it is in this context that Paris Saint-Germain has come under fire for their rather lacklustre presentation video, which felt more like something a property developer would put together to showcase a new gentrifying tower of flats in an 'up-and-coming' neighbourhood.
If you haven't seen it, it basically amounts to footage taken from a drone flying around the stadium. Starting from the streets of Paris, we head through the concourse surrounding the stadium, through the club store, the hallways of the stadium and then out onto the pitch, where there standing is an obviously CGI figure of Messi.
A new 💎 in Paris !
— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_inside) August 10, 2021
PSGxMESSI ❤️💙 pic.twitter.com/2JpYSRtpCy
It was hardly fitting of the occasion, an opinion shared by G2's Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez, with the esport organisation's CEO and founder claiming that two of his interns could have rustled up something better in "2 hours time".
traditional sports teams suck at content
— CarlosR ocelote (@CarlosR) August 11, 2021
messi's announcement can be done by two of my interns in 2h time
not a joke
Ocelote didn't just take fire at PSG but all traditional sports teams.
Tweeting out:
"Traditional sports teams suck at content.
Messi's announcement can be done by two of my interns in 2h time.
Not a joke."
Whether that is true or not -- and Ocelote does like to needle on Twitter -- claims that esport organisations are better prepared to produce "content" is not exactly untrue, with many team signings coming in the form of lavishly themed videos, take for instance two examples from the world of Valorant; Team BDS' Cyberpunk 2077 inspired fare or Guild Esports getting their all-Swedish roster to go Viking.
We can't be too hard on PSG though, with just five days to get everything in order, convincing Messi to suit up as an alien and fly in on a Champions League trophy, while still sorting the details on his £1m a week contract, may have been too much.