Lionel Messi has joined Paris Saint-Germain on a two-year contract after leaving Barcelona upon the expiration of his contract.
It was a deal that sent shockwaves through the world of football, with the best player in the sport leaving the club where he had spent the entirety of his career to move to the French capital.
The move sees Messi link up with his former Barca teammate and close friend Neymar, who left the Camp Nou to move to Paris in a world record transfer fee of £200million four years ago.
It will also see him form a formidable attacking trio which is completed by Kylian Mbappe, who is the second most expensive player in the sport - having joined the Parisians from Monaco in the summer of 2017.
There is little doubt that those three players are firmly established as among the very best in the sport, due to their ongoing excellence at the top level of football.
The Argentine has won a record six Ballon d’Or titles in his distinguished career, marking him as the best player in each of those calendar years - and many believe he could easily have won many more.
That is one more personal title than his long-term rival Cristiano Ronaldo, whom he faced for Barca against Real Madrid in a nine-year rivalry when the two established themselves as the undisputed best players in the world - and amongst the greatest ever to play the sport.
Ronaldo’s £100million move to Juventus in the summer of 2018 brought an end to that particular era, with Messi now also departing La Liga to move to the French capital.
Back in March 2019, Messi was asked who he believed were the greatest players in football at the time - and he, unsurprisingly, named future PSG teammates Mbappe and Neymar in his top five.
The Argentine did exclude himself and Ronaldo from the top five ranking, in an indicated that he believed they had transcended the level of the sport in recent years.
Alongside Mbappe and Neymar, Messi counted his close friend and Argentina international teammate Sergio Aguero, his then-Barca teammate Luis Suarez and Eden Hazard (then at Chelsea before moving to Real Madrid) in the top five.
Messi told Marca : "It was nice to have Ronaldo in La Liga for the prestige it brought.
"Excluding him [Ronaldo] and me, the best players in the world are Mbappe, Hazard, Suarez, Aguero and Neymar."
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Source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/lionel-messi-news-best-player-24796109
