sings the revolution, part 2
by meretricula
sings the revolution, part i
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source: Twitter
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Messi: "I love this club and will retire here"
David Puig
Barça's star striker and vice captain expressed his pleasure with the team's recent performances and his support for coach Luis Enrique, although due to personal reasons he has chosen to allow his contract with the club to run out and retire at the end of the season.
"I am very happy with the way the team has played, we are working very hard in training and it is paying off on the field. We need to keep focused on maintaining our level, because every game is difficult," Messi asserted, echoing the sentiments of coach Luis Enrique earlier in the week. "Our opponents always make things difficult for us but I am very proud to be able to play with these teammates because I know we will do our best to help each other and win each match."
Retirement, not renewal
Messi once again voiced his pride and love for the club where he has played since the age of thirteen, but he also gave an announcement that will be a sad blow to Barça fans around the world: he will be retiring at the end of the season. "I've always said I want to retire at Barça and I want to leave while I can still play at the level the club deserves. It was a difficult decision for me but I will not be renewing my contract. I have no interest in joining another club. I will retire from football immediately when the season ends. I can only say thank you to this great club for everything it has done for me."
Reasons for departure purely personal
Messi swiftly rejected any suggestion that conflict with coach Luis Enrique was behind his decision to retire. "I have the greatest respect for Luis Enrique. He is an amazing coach and has done amazing things for this team. I have confidence that he and the team will continue to do the same outstanding job whether I am playing or not." Instead, he assured the media that his reasons were personal: "I want to spend more time with my family."
source: FCB.cat
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Lionel Messi: Taking His Toys And Going Home
Category: La Liga, Player News
Leo Messi Shock Retirement Announcement
UPDATE 2: Purely circumstantial, but as an alert reader pointed out - what's Cesca Fabregas doing in Barcelona during the WPS season? Leaving Messi's house? Looking… kind of pregnant?
A Messi-Fabregas baby is pretty much the only thing that could possibly make us feel okay with Leo's retirement. Fingers crossed that this rumour turns out to be true.
UPDATE: Word out of Spain is that Leo cited an imminent bundle of joy as his reason for retiring now, rather than, say, when he actually reached retirement age. To the best of our knowledge, he's been single for years. Does anyone have information on the identity of his babymama? He's requested that the paps respect his family's privacy but when has that ever stopped them from digging up the name of a 'baller's girlfriend?
Shocking news from Barcelona today as five-time winner of the Ballon d'Or and all-around professional cutiepie Lionel Messi has announced that he's retiring at the end of the season. He's only twenty-nine, with no major injuries, and still a regular starter for his team, where he is treated with the adoration normally afforded to a god. He has never suggested he was even slightly unhappy at Barcelona. In all sincerity, Kickettes, we're stunned.
source: Kickette.com
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Cesca was driving home from practice when the club doctors called her about the results of her latest physical, and she had absolutely no memory of how she'd ended up on Kelly Smith's doorstep after she hung up the phone, but it wasn't like she'd had anywhere else she could go. She hadn't really planned on bursting into tears as soon as Kelly opened the door, either. "Kelly," she wailed. "Kelly, I'm pregnant."
"Oh dear," Kelly said.
A few feet behind her, Kelly's husband said, "I'll go put the kettle on."
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FIFA Ballon d'Or 2015 - LIVE! January 12
FIFA Ballon d'Or 2015 Live with FourFourTwo 12.1.15
Huw Davies: FRANCESCA FABREGAS, ladies and gentlemen!
Tim Stannard: Good lord, someone finally wrestled the trophy out of Marta's hands. Even Cesca looks like she can't believe it. They should rename it the Marta da Silva Player of the Year Award.
Huw Davies: Not that Cesca doesn't deserve it. Hard to argue with her stats. Record number of assists in the league, highest number of assists in World Cup qualifiers, player of the tournament in the last European Cup. It's a tribute to Marta that she held Cesca off as long as she did.
Huw Davies: Cesca's giving her speech in English, interesting. Says thank you to all her teammates - Arsenal Ladies, England and the Boston Breakers.
Huw Davies: And now she's switched to Spanish, so Tim will have to take over.
Tim Stannard: She's speaking Catalan, actually. Barcelona born and bred, just like her brother. She's thanking her friends and family for all their support over the years.
Tim Stannard: Oh, wow, she's tearing up. I'm going to translate this word for word:
Tim Stannard: "Thank you especially to my brother Carlos. I don't know who or what I would be without you, but I know I wouldn't be standing here. You always believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself, you make me a better player and you make me a better person. I miss you, I love you, I hope you will always be as happy as you deserve. No trophy in the world will ever make me prouder than I am to be your sister."
Huw Davies: She's really crying up there.
Tim Stannard: Her brother's crying too. Hah! Leo Messi dug a tissue out of his pockets for him. Don't see that every day.
Huw Davies: So are they going to let her go sit down again?
Huw Davies: Oh, huh. Apparently they're keeping her up there because she's presenting the men's award. That's a new one.
Tim Stannard: Imagine if her brother wins. Tears by the bucketful!
source: FourFourTwo.com
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Cesca sat on Kelly's couch and listened while Kelly rambled about the problems with their latest experiment in new formations. If she concentrated, she could just barely hear Tom shuffling around the kitchen making tea. It was like pretty much every time she'd visited Kelly's house, so long as she ignored the mountains of balled-up tissues surrounding her. "Milk and two sugars, right," Tom said, smiling, as he came back into the room.
"What kind of tea is that?" Kelly demanded. Tom blinked at her. Cesca's mouth twitched involuntarily; Tom was, on occasion, so American she wondered how he and Kelly could even communicate.
"The… tea kind?" he hazarded. "That isn't coffee?"
"Cesca's not to have black tea," Kelly said. "She needs herbal. No, the - I'll be right back," she added to Cesca. Cesca reached for another tissue and blew her nose, noisily. She was trying to clean up and had only succeeded in knocking a pile of snotty used tissues onto the floor when Kelly returned. "No, don't worry about that, love," Kelly said kindly. "Tom'll be along with some tea for you in just a tick." She sat down next to Cesca, paused just long enough to make the moment awkward, and then patted Cesca's hand. "So what do you want to do?"
To her disgust and horror, Cesca felt her eyes welling up again. "I don't know," she said miserably.
"Love, if you don't want - you can - you know you can… nobody will think badly of you, if you just…" Get rid of it, Cesca finished to herself. If you just get rid of it.
This is my career, she thought.
This is Leo's baby.
This is our baby.
"I want - I want it," she choked. Her throat was closing up. "I want it and I want football and my mother's going to be right - "
"Oh, oh no, Cesca," Kelly said, proffering the box of tissues yet again. "It's not - don't - "
"Here's your tea," Tom said, tactful as ever. "And a gentleman who would probably like to speak with you." He was holding the video phone from the kitchen, and Leo's face was on the screen.
"Cesca," Leo said frantically. "Cesca, you're crying, why are you crying, are you hurt? Did something happen to your parents? Who - I don't know what that man was trying to say to me, did he kidnap you? Did he kidnap you and Kelly?"
Cesca shook her head and cried harder.
"You're still in Boston? Don't - I'll be there in, in, how long does it take to fly to Boston, don't worry, okay, I'll - "
"You have practice," Cesca managed, halfway to hysteria. "You have practice in Barcelona, I live in America, where is the baby going to live - "
"I don't care about practice, you're - baby?" Leo stuttered to a stop and his face went blank. "Cesca, are you - are we - oh my god."
"I didn't - I know we didn't - "
"Cesca," Leo said. His eyes were shining, but it was impossible to tell, on the low-res phone screen, whether it was with excitement or tears. "Cesca. Are you sure."
"I - the club doctor - yes," Cesca said, because it wasn't that hard to do the math and count back to the one time that summer when they'd been in too much of a hurry to bother with a condom. "I - "
"I will be there soon," Leo promised. "I can - Cesca, it's going to be all right. No matter what, it's going to be all right."
"But your practice," Cesca said. She felt like a broken record, but she didn't know what else to say.
Leo stared at her. "Do you seriously think I care about football right now? Just - just stay with Kelly, okay? I'll be there as soon as I can." He paused, his hand taking up the entire screen as it hovered over the end call button. "We're having a baby," Leo said, rushed and terrified and happy, "Cesca, I love you, we're having a baby," and the screen went black.
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The Front: El Mundo Deportivo (15.10.2015)
MESSI'S MYSTERY AILMENT
Three days of training missed
Fight on the training pitch between Messi and Fabregas, but all smiles afterward
Luis Enrique: Messi will be fit for the Clasico
Barça hopes to renew Thiago within a month
source: totalBarça
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Leo had been out on the training pitch for all of half a minute when Carlos came marching up to him and shoved him in the chest so hard he stumbled and nearly fell. "What the fuck!" Carlos yelled. "You knock up my sister and I find out from Lucho, you fucking - "
"Hey - hey!" Gerard pushed between them, one hand on Carlos' shoulder, the other on Leo's arm. "Carlos, stop it right now." The three B-team kids who'd been called up for training were staring, wide-eyed and scared. Thiago and Luis Enrique had both started to move in their direction, but Gerard shook his head, and they backed off. "This is not the place," he hissed, still in his captain voice. "I shouldn't have to tell you that. And for fuck's sake, Leo," he added, turning on him, "you got Cesca pregnant? She's got a career, you selfish - "
"Look, it's not like I planned it," Leo snapped. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, okay, but I wasn't sure if she - if she wanted - I didn't know, okay?"
"If - oh. Oh." Carlos froze momentarily. "Wait. Oh, Jesus, Leo, I didn't - are you - is she - "
"We talked about it," Leo said. "She's going to wrap up for the season and come stay here until - until. And then we're going to go back together."
"Back to - " Gerard said.
"Are you sure?" Carlos interrupted quietly. "I know it's not - Leo."
"It's what I want," Leo said, and it was easy to say because it was. He smiled suddenly. "It's - god. We're having a baby."
Carlos inspected him closely, and then finally grinned back. "Holy shit, I guess you are."
"Guess that makes us uncles," Gerard said, draping an arm around both of them.
"Any time you're ready to start stretching," Lucho called.
"Yeah, yeah, we're coming!" Carlos shouted. "You'd better be naming this kid after me, that's all I'm saying," he added as they walked over to join the rest of the group.
"Cesca thinks it's going to be a girl," Leo said.
"Yeah?" Carlos peered around Gerard to look at Leo. Leo couldn't quite manage to keep himself from beaming. "Carlota's a nice name."
"Carlota," Leo repeated thoughtfully. "Yeah."
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[IMAGE DESC. Two men, one middle aged, one much younger, both wearing FC Barcelona scarves, jumping to their feet in the stands of a football stadium. They are surrounded by fans in red and white. A dark-haired woman wearing an Arsenal jersey, still seated, is dragging at the sleeve of the younger man; her other hand is over her eyes.]
TRANSCRIPT
INT: So I was going through footage of the 2006 Champions League final and I found something -
FF: Oh, wow.
INT: So that is you?
FF: Wow, that's amazing. I can't believe somebody - well, I guess it probably looked pretty funny, even if they didn't recognize us. Yeah, that - wow. That's crazy.
INT: So, 2006 -
FF: Yeah (laughter). Yeah, it's funny, you know, because I look so - gosh, I look right hacked off, don't I? If Barça had scored against anybody else in that final, you know - I mean, my whole family, we're Barcelona fans, my granddad brought me and my brother to the stadium when we were babies, I've been a socio since birth. And Leo Messi's one of my best friends, I was really happy for him to win the Champions League, even if he didn't get to play. But that was my brother down there on the pitch, you know? That was my team. And then (laughter) I was sitting with Geri Pique and his dad, and - Geri is Carlos's best friend, so Carlos got us the tickets, so we were sitting with the Arsenal fans. And Geri's a great guy, you know, I've known him since we were eleven or something, he's fantastic, even if he is a fucking Manc, excuse my language. But him and his dad, you cut open a vein, they'd bleed blaugrana, they didn't care who was sitting around them. I was afraid we were going to get lynched.
source: YouTube
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"Leo. Leo. Leo, wake up."
Leo rolled over and groaned. "What time is it?"
"Leo, what if our baby doesn't like football? What if it - what if it likes maths, or music, or - "
"Our baby can like whatever she wants," Leo said patiently. "Even maths. It doesn't matter, all right? You will love her and she will love you and you will be a good parent. Go back to sleep." He turned over again and mashed his face into his pillow. "She'll probably like football, though," he mumbled, already falling asleep. "I mean, she's going to be related to Carlos. I wouldn't worry about it."
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The Prodigal Son
HIS DISAPPEARANCE ROCKED THE FOOTBALL WORLD, BUT NOW LIONEL MESSI HAS FINALLY RETURNED TO CATALUNYA - AT LEAST FOR A VISIT.
SID LOWE
IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS since Leo Messi, five-time winner of the Ballon d'Or, announced out of the blue that he was retiring from football to raise a family - an unusual ambition for a male athlete, especially considering he was only twenty-nine at the time. He played out the season, once again winning the league with Barcelona, and true to his word he was gone.
Where did he go? Not home to Argentina, surprisingly enough. He followed long-time partner Francesca Fabregas to North America, where she plays for the WPS, the American women's professional soccer league. She went back to work and Messi settled down to the business of raising their baby daughter.
They're back in Catalunya, Fabregas' birthplace and Messi's home for half his life, for both business and pleasure. Her brother Carlos, of whom you may have heard, still plays and lives in the city with his wife and children. Many of Messi's friends from his playing days are here as well; Gerard Pique may be slowing down now that he's past thirty, but he's still the immovable centre-back captain of Barcelona. Most important, however, is Messi's former coach, Pep Guardiola, who has just taken over the duty of coaching the Catalonian national team and is preparing for a friendly against the Basque Country. Catalonia isn't recognized by FIFA and isn't constrained by the same eligibility rules, and Guardiola has taken advantage of their informal status by calling up the Argentine Messi - and his football-playing Catalan wife.
Messi agreed to an interview while he was in town, though it isn't immediately clear why, since getting a complete sentence out of him remains one of the most difficult task in sports journalism - a colleague once likened the experience to pulling teeth. But though he is still painfully, painfully shy, once the subject turns to his daughter, like any new parent, he finds his words. "She's brilliant," he says, beaming. "Absolutely brilliant. Cesca and I are so lucky, she hardly even cried when she was a baby, and she's just happy no matter where we are or what we're doing. I carried her in a sling everywhere when she was littler, even to Cesca's practices, and she was always so curious about everything. She doesn't like it if Cesca and I aren't with her, but so long as we're there, we could go anywhere, nothing bothers her."
At this moment, the woman of the hour rushes into the room, daughter in tow. She has forgotten something, an appointment with a Nike representative, and is already late, I gather from the rapid-fire Catalan she addresses to Messi. He takes their daughter and his wife's kiss on the top of his head with equal equanimity and smiles as she dashes away. Carlota settles into her father's lap, watching me with the bright-eyed curiosity he had just described.
I am curious about the Catalan - Messi and I have been speaking in Spanish - but Messi only shrugs. "She's afraid Carlota won't learn [to speak Catalan]," he elaborates, when pressed. "Because we spend most of the year in America, and people are speaking English around us all the time. So she only speaks Catalan at home, and I speak Spanish. I don't mind. I can understand it fine." He smiles down at Carlota. "She has an Argentine accent in Spanish, because she never hears it from her mother. So she sounds like both of us."
Messi doesn't particularly want to discuss his wife. Of course, Messi has never particularly wanted to discuss anything in his life, but his reticence on the subject of the woman for whom he reportedly sacrificed the end of his career is astonishing - famously, when he announced his imminent retirement, not a single member of the press corps had a clue that he was seeing anyone, let alone that he had been in a committed relationship for nearly a decade. Even the most innocent questions - how did you meet? (they were childhood friends in Barcelona); when did you get married? (a few months before their daughter was born); where will you live when she retires? (a blank stare) - make him fidgety and uncomfortable. If you ask anything more complicated, "Cesca can speak for herself," is all he has to say.
No one is arguing that. The question is, if she did, would anyone listen?
The feelings of football fans, and especially Barcelona fans, towards Cesca Fabregas are complex. She is beloved for her role in bringing her brother home - and no matter how many times either of them denies that she had anything to do with his decision, the suspiciously coincident timing of their departures from Arsenal will always speak louder. She is also reviled for reducing the best football player in the world to a househusband.
That is, of course, an incredibly oversimplified explanation of Messi's retirement. It's easy to blame his wife for stealing him away; it's harder to accept that his career had peaked, that he was staring at a slow decline in form and playing time until he inevitably slipped into total obscurity, that perhaps immediate retirement, still at the top of the footballing world, and the promise of a quiet life with his family had come to outweigh his love for the club and the game to which he had dedicated his life. If Messi is to remain football's messiah, the narrative needs a villain, and Cesca Fabregas happens to be a convenient fit. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?
"I could have played another year at the top level, two, maybe, if I was lucky with injuries," Messi says, shrugging. "People can say what they like. I wanted to retire at Barcelona and I wanted to be with my family. To me it was worth it not to play one more year."
More comfortable ground - slightly - is what Messi has been doing for the past four years. "I stay home, mostly," he says. "I take care of Carlota. Hopefully I'll be able to be more involved with my foundation now that she's a little older and can go to school, but I do work for that when I can. I train with Cesca to stay fit. I coach the neighborhood girls football team."
And this is sufficient to keep the best football player of the past twenty years - arguably of all of time - busy?
Messi looks thoughtful. "It was difficult at the beginning," he concedes. "I didn't know anyone in Boston, I didn't speak the language, I wasn't used to staying home all the time while Cesca was traveling for games. And it was so cold. But it's the same as what any footballer's partner goes through, if they move to a different country. Cesca moved to England when she was sixteen to be with her brother, so she knew what it was like. She helped a lot. My little sister came to stay with us for a while and help with the baby, and I did get to like Boston once I got used to it. I'm glad we're in California now, though. I can read the signs in the grocery store again." The mental image of Lionel Messi standing in the cereal aisle choosing between brands seems too bizarre to pass without comment, but at the same time, no comment could possibly do it justice.
But he has no regrets. "What would I regret?" he asks, looking genuinely puzzled. "I have a beautiful daughter. There's nothing I could have in any other life that would be worth losing her." The only thing that makes Messi angry, in all the time I spent interviewing him, is the suggestion that his wife could have been the one to stay home with their daughter. "Have you ever seen Cesca play," he demands. "Watch her play and tell me then that I should have said, no, you give up football right when you finally get to play pro so we can have a family. Watch her. If you still say that, you know nothing about football. Nothing."
It becomes clear a little later why Messi (and Fabregas) have decided to show their faces in the European media again. The Catalonia-Basque Country game, curious and gimmicky though it is (the idea of male and female footballers on the pitch at the same time seems noble and high-minded, but it plays like a kick-and-giggle; they're different sports and just can't be played at the same time), is raising money that will be split between the two federations and then split again between funding men's and women's activities. The amount allotted to the currently nonexistent Catalonian women's team will be distributed equally to Barcelona and Espanyol, who supply almost all the Catalan women's football players, to fund women's development. If it sounds like a lot of divisions before the money gets to them, that's because there are, and under normal circumstances the end result would be negligible. This time, though, Leo Messi has come out of retirement for the match. Tickets to the Camp Nou sold out in the first week after Guardiola announced he would play.
Barcelona's piece of the pie will go towards establishing a new wing for girls at their famous academy, La Masia. Starting with the under-12s, they are working to create a system that will be equally successful at bringing up female professional football players. The brains, drive and figurehead of the operation? Francesca Fabregas. Her participation for the moment is limited to fundraising and networking during her off-season, but the president has already taken the unusual step of clearing her future appointment, once she retires, with the board. Aside from the awkwardness over Messi, she is the perfect woman for the job: born and raised in Arenys del Mar, not far from Barcelona; the sister of a beloved Barça vice-captain; a lifelong cule; a proud speaker of Catalan - and, of course, an internationally recognizable woman footballer. Even the fact that she chose to represent England over Spain may play in her favor with the more virulently nationalistic sections of Barcelona's fanbase. And once she brings Messi home again (as it is increasingly clear they both intend, in some coaching capacity or other) all will be forgiven.
A brief taste of what is to come was on display the night of the Catalonia-Basque Country friendly. Fans cheered raucously every time Messi touched the ball - he is slower now, of course, but still possesses the visionary passes to split defenses in two. The Athletic Bilbao defender marking him was over ten years his junior, but still she could only shake her head and smile when he escaped her ten minutes before half-time and scored a brilliant goal off an equally brilliant assist from Fabregas. He celebrated with a modestly blown kiss to their daughter, but the fans and their highly amused teammates kept clapping until he went up to his wife and gave her what might be called in some parts "a right proper snog." When she then went over to the dugout and substituted herself by trading her brother her "#4 Fabregas" jersey in exchange for her daughter and a seat on the bench, they laughed and clapped again.
The match did what it was meant to - it raised money, and it won hearts. The only pity of it is that it took until now for Barcelona to realize what Leo Messi has known since he was thirteen: Francesca Fabregas is every bit as brilliant as he is at football.
Anyone watching their joint post-match press conference could have told you one other appealing fact about Cesca Fabregas: she and Leo Messi are still, after almost fifteen years and a child together, utterly stupid in love with each other. They have an interesting dynamic, to be sure - Messi wasn't joking when he said she could speak for herself. She can speak for him, too, and probably better than he does, though she looks at him before every answer to make sure she isn't taking a question he would rather address himself. She never is, but she always checks.
The one time Messi's interest level rises above "dying of boredom" is towards the end of the presser. Fabregas has fielded questions about the match, about the Catalan and Basque separatist movements, about Guardiola, about her brother, about Messi, and finally there is a question about her: one of the journalists asks if her work with the women's development program at Barcelona is for her daughter.
"My daughter is a four-year-old, not an athlete," Fabregas retorts, choosing to disregard the fact that the only way that her child might fail to possess the greatest sporting pedigree in Spain would be if their tennis federation finally figured out how to clone Rafael Nadal. "And I have no idea whether she will be an athlete. I'm not doing this for her, I am doing it for myself, and for any other girl who dreams of playing football for Barcelona."
The journalist misses her point. But surely her daughter will be an athlete, he protests. Surely a child born in Barcelona, a city of such great athletics, the daughter of Lionel Messi -
"This is also a city of great architecture. Maybe she will be an architect."
"An architect?" Messi repeats, looking up from his hands for the first time. Clearly this is not a possibility that has occurred to him before. He thinks for a moment, then beams at his wife. "An architect. That would be good."
So don't cry for Leo Messi, Barcelona. You (and football) may miss him, but he's doing just fine.
source: Sports Illustrated
companion fic: five teammates francesca fabregas never had
notes
1. it takes a village. thank you to acchikocchi, dorkorific, here_instead, nahco3, vaginal_parfait and vlieger for their interest and encouragement, aramley, distira, eileenyx, kfunk22, louis_quatorze, mardia and tabacoychanel for their help and criticism, and of course stickmarionette, who when I said, "I'm thinking about writing an AU where Cesc is a girl," replied, "do it!"
2. hopefully this is obvious, but in case not: nearly all the "sources" in this fic are pastiched from real ones, which are linked directly beneath each one. the writing is almost entirely mine, but the interview with Cesc and Phil and the Kickette post about Leo's imaginary girlfriend both contain some unaltered text from the original, and the description in the Rod Liddle article of non-Brits in the WPL as "Jenny Foreigners" comes not from anything written by Rod Liddle but this article by Georgina Turner. not a source for any text or stylistic elements, but for the public reaction to Cesca described in the Sid Lowe article, compare this article about the role Johan Cruyff's wife may or may not have played in his decision not to attend the World Cup in 1978.
3. I have knowingly altered the real events upon which this fic is based in two places: I changed the birthdates of the Fabregas siblings so that they were born in the same year, and I shoehorned the English women's football team into the Beijing Olympics, even though they didn't qualify and likely wouldn't have been allowed to participate even if they had. I hope you will forgive these and any other unwitting errors on my part, but feel free to point them out for my edification.
4. I'm probably not the right person to write a story about the state of women's football right now, the lack of funding, the media disinterest, the ingrained sexism, the basic inequality that guarantees that Cesc Fabregas, if he were a woman, would have a vastly more difficult life. however, nobody else was writing that story, and I think it needs to be written. it came out as a love story when I tried, and I gave it a happy ending because that's the way I want love stories to end. if you're interested in the reality behind the fairy tale, I can recommend From A Left Wing as a good starting point.
sings the revolution, part i
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source: Twitter
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Messi: "I love this club and will retire here"
David Puig
Barça's star striker and vice captain expressed his pleasure with the team's recent performances and his support for coach Luis Enrique, although due to personal reasons he has chosen to allow his contract with the club to run out and retire at the end of the season.
"I am very happy with the way the team has played, we are working very hard in training and it is paying off on the field. We need to keep focused on maintaining our level, because every game is difficult," Messi asserted, echoing the sentiments of coach Luis Enrique earlier in the week. "Our opponents always make things difficult for us but I am very proud to be able to play with these teammates because I know we will do our best to help each other and win each match."
Retirement, not renewal
Messi once again voiced his pride and love for the club where he has played since the age of thirteen, but he also gave an announcement that will be a sad blow to Barça fans around the world: he will be retiring at the end of the season. "I've always said I want to retire at Barça and I want to leave while I can still play at the level the club deserves. It was a difficult decision for me but I will not be renewing my contract. I have no interest in joining another club. I will retire from football immediately when the season ends. I can only say thank you to this great club for everything it has done for me."
Reasons for departure purely personal
Messi swiftly rejected any suggestion that conflict with coach Luis Enrique was behind his decision to retire. "I have the greatest respect for Luis Enrique. He is an amazing coach and has done amazing things for this team. I have confidence that he and the team will continue to do the same outstanding job whether I am playing or not." Instead, he assured the media that his reasons were personal: "I want to spend more time with my family."
source: FCB.cat
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Lionel Messi: Taking His Toys And Going Home
Category: La Liga, Player News
Leo Messi Shock Retirement Announcement
UPDATE 2: Purely circumstantial, but as an alert reader pointed out - what's Cesca Fabregas doing in Barcelona during the WPS season? Leaving Messi's house? Looking… kind of pregnant?
A Messi-Fabregas baby is pretty much the only thing that could possibly make us feel okay with Leo's retirement. Fingers crossed that this rumour turns out to be true.
UPDATE: Word out of Spain is that Leo cited an imminent bundle of joy as his reason for retiring now, rather than, say, when he actually reached retirement age. To the best of our knowledge, he's been single for years. Does anyone have information on the identity of his babymama? He's requested that the paps respect his family's privacy but when has that ever stopped them from digging up the name of a 'baller's girlfriend?
Shocking news from Barcelona today as five-time winner of the Ballon d'Or and all-around professional cutiepie Lionel Messi has announced that he's retiring at the end of the season. He's only twenty-nine, with no major injuries, and still a regular starter for his team, where he is treated with the adoration normally afforded to a god. He has never suggested he was even slightly unhappy at Barcelona. In all sincerity, Kickettes, we're stunned.
source: Kickette.com
*
Cesca was driving home from practice when the club doctors called her about the results of her latest physical, and she had absolutely no memory of how she'd ended up on Kelly Smith's doorstep after she hung up the phone, but it wasn't like she'd had anywhere else she could go. She hadn't really planned on bursting into tears as soon as Kelly opened the door, either. "Kelly," she wailed. "Kelly, I'm pregnant."
"Oh dear," Kelly said.
A few feet behind her, Kelly's husband said, "I'll go put the kettle on."
*
FIFA Ballon d'Or 2015 - LIVE! January 12
FIFA Ballon d'Or 2015 Live with FourFourTwo 12.1.15
Huw Davies: FRANCESCA FABREGAS, ladies and gentlemen!
Tim Stannard: Good lord, someone finally wrestled the trophy out of Marta's hands. Even Cesca looks like she can't believe it. They should rename it the Marta da Silva Player of the Year Award.
Huw Davies: Not that Cesca doesn't deserve it. Hard to argue with her stats. Record number of assists in the league, highest number of assists in World Cup qualifiers, player of the tournament in the last European Cup. It's a tribute to Marta that she held Cesca off as long as she did.
Huw Davies: Cesca's giving her speech in English, interesting. Says thank you to all her teammates - Arsenal Ladies, England and the Boston Breakers.
Huw Davies: And now she's switched to Spanish, so Tim will have to take over.
Tim Stannard: She's speaking Catalan, actually. Barcelona born and bred, just like her brother. She's thanking her friends and family for all their support over the years.
Tim Stannard: Oh, wow, she's tearing up. I'm going to translate this word for word:
Tim Stannard: "Thank you especially to my brother Carlos. I don't know who or what I would be without you, but I know I wouldn't be standing here. You always believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself, you make me a better player and you make me a better person. I miss you, I love you, I hope you will always be as happy as you deserve. No trophy in the world will ever make me prouder than I am to be your sister."
Huw Davies: She's really crying up there.
Tim Stannard: Her brother's crying too. Hah! Leo Messi dug a tissue out of his pockets for him. Don't see that every day.
Huw Davies: So are they going to let her go sit down again?
Huw Davies: Oh, huh. Apparently they're keeping her up there because she's presenting the men's award. That's a new one.
Tim Stannard: Imagine if her brother wins. Tears by the bucketful!
source: FourFourTwo.com
*
Cesca sat on Kelly's couch and listened while Kelly rambled about the problems with their latest experiment in new formations. If she concentrated, she could just barely hear Tom shuffling around the kitchen making tea. It was like pretty much every time she'd visited Kelly's house, so long as she ignored the mountains of balled-up tissues surrounding her. "Milk and two sugars, right," Tom said, smiling, as he came back into the room.
"What kind of tea is that?" Kelly demanded. Tom blinked at her. Cesca's mouth twitched involuntarily; Tom was, on occasion, so American she wondered how he and Kelly could even communicate.
"The… tea kind?" he hazarded. "That isn't coffee?"
"Cesca's not to have black tea," Kelly said. "She needs herbal. No, the - I'll be right back," she added to Cesca. Cesca reached for another tissue and blew her nose, noisily. She was trying to clean up and had only succeeded in knocking a pile of snotty used tissues onto the floor when Kelly returned. "No, don't worry about that, love," Kelly said kindly. "Tom'll be along with some tea for you in just a tick." She sat down next to Cesca, paused just long enough to make the moment awkward, and then patted Cesca's hand. "So what do you want to do?"
To her disgust and horror, Cesca felt her eyes welling up again. "I don't know," she said miserably.
"Love, if you don't want - you can - you know you can… nobody will think badly of you, if you just…" Get rid of it, Cesca finished to herself. If you just get rid of it.
This is my career, she thought.
This is Leo's baby.
This is our baby.
"I want - I want it," she choked. Her throat was closing up. "I want it and I want football and my mother's going to be right - "
"Oh, oh no, Cesca," Kelly said, proffering the box of tissues yet again. "It's not - don't - "
"Here's your tea," Tom said, tactful as ever. "And a gentleman who would probably like to speak with you." He was holding the video phone from the kitchen, and Leo's face was on the screen.
"Cesca," Leo said frantically. "Cesca, you're crying, why are you crying, are you hurt? Did something happen to your parents? Who - I don't know what that man was trying to say to me, did he kidnap you? Did he kidnap you and Kelly?"
Cesca shook her head and cried harder.
"You're still in Boston? Don't - I'll be there in, in, how long does it take to fly to Boston, don't worry, okay, I'll - "
"You have practice," Cesca managed, halfway to hysteria. "You have practice in Barcelona, I live in America, where is the baby going to live - "
"I don't care about practice, you're - baby?" Leo stuttered to a stop and his face went blank. "Cesca, are you - are we - oh my god."
"I didn't - I know we didn't - "
"Cesca," Leo said. His eyes were shining, but it was impossible to tell, on the low-res phone screen, whether it was with excitement or tears. "Cesca. Are you sure."
"I - the club doctor - yes," Cesca said, because it wasn't that hard to do the math and count back to the one time that summer when they'd been in too much of a hurry to bother with a condom. "I - "
"I will be there soon," Leo promised. "I can - Cesca, it's going to be all right. No matter what, it's going to be all right."
"But your practice," Cesca said. She felt like a broken record, but she didn't know what else to say.
Leo stared at her. "Do you seriously think I care about football right now? Just - just stay with Kelly, okay? I'll be there as soon as I can." He paused, his hand taking up the entire screen as it hovered over the end call button. "We're having a baby," Leo said, rushed and terrified and happy, "Cesca, I love you, we're having a baby," and the screen went black.
*
The Front: El Mundo Deportivo (15.10.2015)
MESSI'S MYSTERY AILMENT
Three days of training missed
Fight on the training pitch between Messi and Fabregas, but all smiles afterward
Luis Enrique: Messi will be fit for the Clasico
Barça hopes to renew Thiago within a month
source: totalBarça
*
Leo had been out on the training pitch for all of half a minute when Carlos came marching up to him and shoved him in the chest so hard he stumbled and nearly fell. "What the fuck!" Carlos yelled. "You knock up my sister and I find out from Lucho, you fucking - "
"Hey - hey!" Gerard pushed between them, one hand on Carlos' shoulder, the other on Leo's arm. "Carlos, stop it right now." The three B-team kids who'd been called up for training were staring, wide-eyed and scared. Thiago and Luis Enrique had both started to move in their direction, but Gerard shook his head, and they backed off. "This is not the place," he hissed, still in his captain voice. "I shouldn't have to tell you that. And for fuck's sake, Leo," he added, turning on him, "you got Cesca pregnant? She's got a career, you selfish - "
"Look, it's not like I planned it," Leo snapped. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, okay, but I wasn't sure if she - if she wanted - I didn't know, okay?"
"If - oh. Oh." Carlos froze momentarily. "Wait. Oh, Jesus, Leo, I didn't - are you - is she - "
"We talked about it," Leo said. "She's going to wrap up for the season and come stay here until - until. And then we're going to go back together."
"Back to - " Gerard said.
"Are you sure?" Carlos interrupted quietly. "I know it's not - Leo."
"It's what I want," Leo said, and it was easy to say because it was. He smiled suddenly. "It's - god. We're having a baby."
Carlos inspected him closely, and then finally grinned back. "Holy shit, I guess you are."
"Guess that makes us uncles," Gerard said, draping an arm around both of them.
"Any time you're ready to start stretching," Lucho called.
"Yeah, yeah, we're coming!" Carlos shouted. "You'd better be naming this kid after me, that's all I'm saying," he added as they walked over to join the rest of the group.
"Cesca thinks it's going to be a girl," Leo said.
"Yeah?" Carlos peered around Gerard to look at Leo. Leo couldn't quite manage to keep himself from beaming. "Carlota's a nice name."
"Carlota," Leo repeated thoughtfully. "Yeah."
*
[IMAGE DESC. Two men, one middle aged, one much younger, both wearing FC Barcelona scarves, jumping to their feet in the stands of a football stadium. They are surrounded by fans in red and white. A dark-haired woman wearing an Arsenal jersey, still seated, is dragging at the sleeve of the younger man; her other hand is over her eyes.]
TRANSCRIPT
INT: So I was going through footage of the 2006 Champions League final and I found something -
FF: Oh, wow.
INT: So that is you?
FF: Wow, that's amazing. I can't believe somebody - well, I guess it probably looked pretty funny, even if they didn't recognize us. Yeah, that - wow. That's crazy.
INT: So, 2006 -
FF: Yeah (laughter). Yeah, it's funny, you know, because I look so - gosh, I look right hacked off, don't I? If Barça had scored against anybody else in that final, you know - I mean, my whole family, we're Barcelona fans, my granddad brought me and my brother to the stadium when we were babies, I've been a socio since birth. And Leo Messi's one of my best friends, I was really happy for him to win the Champions League, even if he didn't get to play. But that was my brother down there on the pitch, you know? That was my team. And then (laughter) I was sitting with Geri Pique and his dad, and - Geri is Carlos's best friend, so Carlos got us the tickets, so we were sitting with the Arsenal fans. And Geri's a great guy, you know, I've known him since we were eleven or something, he's fantastic, even if he is a fucking Manc, excuse my language. But him and his dad, you cut open a vein, they'd bleed blaugrana, they didn't care who was sitting around them. I was afraid we were going to get lynched.
source: YouTube
*
"Leo. Leo. Leo, wake up."
Leo rolled over and groaned. "What time is it?"
"Leo, what if our baby doesn't like football? What if it - what if it likes maths, or music, or - "
"Our baby can like whatever she wants," Leo said patiently. "Even maths. It doesn't matter, all right? You will love her and she will love you and you will be a good parent. Go back to sleep." He turned over again and mashed his face into his pillow. "She'll probably like football, though," he mumbled, already falling asleep. "I mean, she's going to be related to Carlos. I wouldn't worry about it."
*
The Prodigal Son
HIS DISAPPEARANCE ROCKED THE FOOTBALL WORLD, BUT NOW LIONEL MESSI HAS FINALLY RETURNED TO CATALUNYA - AT LEAST FOR A VISIT.
SID LOWE
IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS since Leo Messi, five-time winner of the Ballon d'Or, announced out of the blue that he was retiring from football to raise a family - an unusual ambition for a male athlete, especially considering he was only twenty-nine at the time. He played out the season, once again winning the league with Barcelona, and true to his word he was gone.
Where did he go? Not home to Argentina, surprisingly enough. He followed long-time partner Francesca Fabregas to North America, where she plays for the WPS, the American women's professional soccer league. She went back to work and Messi settled down to the business of raising their baby daughter.
They're back in Catalunya, Fabregas' birthplace and Messi's home for half his life, for both business and pleasure. Her brother Carlos, of whom you may have heard, still plays and lives in the city with his wife and children. Many of Messi's friends from his playing days are here as well; Gerard Pique may be slowing down now that he's past thirty, but he's still the immovable centre-back captain of Barcelona. Most important, however, is Messi's former coach, Pep Guardiola, who has just taken over the duty of coaching the Catalonian national team and is preparing for a friendly against the Basque Country. Catalonia isn't recognized by FIFA and isn't constrained by the same eligibility rules, and Guardiola has taken advantage of their informal status by calling up the Argentine Messi - and his football-playing Catalan wife.
Messi agreed to an interview while he was in town, though it isn't immediately clear why, since getting a complete sentence out of him remains one of the most difficult task in sports journalism - a colleague once likened the experience to pulling teeth. But though he is still painfully, painfully shy, once the subject turns to his daughter, like any new parent, he finds his words. "She's brilliant," he says, beaming. "Absolutely brilliant. Cesca and I are so lucky, she hardly even cried when she was a baby, and she's just happy no matter where we are or what we're doing. I carried her in a sling everywhere when she was littler, even to Cesca's practices, and she was always so curious about everything. She doesn't like it if Cesca and I aren't with her, but so long as we're there, we could go anywhere, nothing bothers her."
At this moment, the woman of the hour rushes into the room, daughter in tow. She has forgotten something, an appointment with a Nike representative, and is already late, I gather from the rapid-fire Catalan she addresses to Messi. He takes their daughter and his wife's kiss on the top of his head with equal equanimity and smiles as she dashes away. Carlota settles into her father's lap, watching me with the bright-eyed curiosity he had just described.
I am curious about the Catalan - Messi and I have been speaking in Spanish - but Messi only shrugs. "She's afraid Carlota won't learn [to speak Catalan]," he elaborates, when pressed. "Because we spend most of the year in America, and people are speaking English around us all the time. So she only speaks Catalan at home, and I speak Spanish. I don't mind. I can understand it fine." He smiles down at Carlota. "She has an Argentine accent in Spanish, because she never hears it from her mother. So she sounds like both of us."
Messi doesn't particularly want to discuss his wife. Of course, Messi has never particularly wanted to discuss anything in his life, but his reticence on the subject of the woman for whom he reportedly sacrificed the end of his career is astonishing - famously, when he announced his imminent retirement, not a single member of the press corps had a clue that he was seeing anyone, let alone that he had been in a committed relationship for nearly a decade. Even the most innocent questions - how did you meet? (they were childhood friends in Barcelona); when did you get married? (a few months before their daughter was born); where will you live when she retires? (a blank stare) - make him fidgety and uncomfortable. If you ask anything more complicated, "Cesca can speak for herself," is all he has to say.
No one is arguing that. The question is, if she did, would anyone listen?
The feelings of football fans, and especially Barcelona fans, towards Cesca Fabregas are complex. She is beloved for her role in bringing her brother home - and no matter how many times either of them denies that she had anything to do with his decision, the suspiciously coincident timing of their departures from Arsenal will always speak louder. She is also reviled for reducing the best football player in the world to a househusband.
That is, of course, an incredibly oversimplified explanation of Messi's retirement. It's easy to blame his wife for stealing him away; it's harder to accept that his career had peaked, that he was staring at a slow decline in form and playing time until he inevitably slipped into total obscurity, that perhaps immediate retirement, still at the top of the footballing world, and the promise of a quiet life with his family had come to outweigh his love for the club and the game to which he had dedicated his life. If Messi is to remain football's messiah, the narrative needs a villain, and Cesca Fabregas happens to be a convenient fit. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?
"I could have played another year at the top level, two, maybe, if I was lucky with injuries," Messi says, shrugging. "People can say what they like. I wanted to retire at Barcelona and I wanted to be with my family. To me it was worth it not to play one more year."
More comfortable ground - slightly - is what Messi has been doing for the past four years. "I stay home, mostly," he says. "I take care of Carlota. Hopefully I'll be able to be more involved with my foundation now that she's a little older and can go to school, but I do work for that when I can. I train with Cesca to stay fit. I coach the neighborhood girls football team."
And this is sufficient to keep the best football player of the past twenty years - arguably of all of time - busy?
Messi looks thoughtful. "It was difficult at the beginning," he concedes. "I didn't know anyone in Boston, I didn't speak the language, I wasn't used to staying home all the time while Cesca was traveling for games. And it was so cold. But it's the same as what any footballer's partner goes through, if they move to a different country. Cesca moved to England when she was sixteen to be with her brother, so she knew what it was like. She helped a lot. My little sister came to stay with us for a while and help with the baby, and I did get to like Boston once I got used to it. I'm glad we're in California now, though. I can read the signs in the grocery store again." The mental image of Lionel Messi standing in the cereal aisle choosing between brands seems too bizarre to pass without comment, but at the same time, no comment could possibly do it justice.
But he has no regrets. "What would I regret?" he asks, looking genuinely puzzled. "I have a beautiful daughter. There's nothing I could have in any other life that would be worth losing her." The only thing that makes Messi angry, in all the time I spent interviewing him, is the suggestion that his wife could have been the one to stay home with their daughter. "Have you ever seen Cesca play," he demands. "Watch her play and tell me then that I should have said, no, you give up football right when you finally get to play pro so we can have a family. Watch her. If you still say that, you know nothing about football. Nothing."
It becomes clear a little later why Messi (and Fabregas) have decided to show their faces in the European media again. The Catalonia-Basque Country game, curious and gimmicky though it is (the idea of male and female footballers on the pitch at the same time seems noble and high-minded, but it plays like a kick-and-giggle; they're different sports and just can't be played at the same time), is raising money that will be split between the two federations and then split again between funding men's and women's activities. The amount allotted to the currently nonexistent Catalonian women's team will be distributed equally to Barcelona and Espanyol, who supply almost all the Catalan women's football players, to fund women's development. If it sounds like a lot of divisions before the money gets to them, that's because there are, and under normal circumstances the end result would be negligible. This time, though, Leo Messi has come out of retirement for the match. Tickets to the Camp Nou sold out in the first week after Guardiola announced he would play.
Barcelona's piece of the pie will go towards establishing a new wing for girls at their famous academy, La Masia. Starting with the under-12s, they are working to create a system that will be equally successful at bringing up female professional football players. The brains, drive and figurehead of the operation? Francesca Fabregas. Her participation for the moment is limited to fundraising and networking during her off-season, but the president has already taken the unusual step of clearing her future appointment, once she retires, with the board. Aside from the awkwardness over Messi, she is the perfect woman for the job: born and raised in Arenys del Mar, not far from Barcelona; the sister of a beloved Barça vice-captain; a lifelong cule; a proud speaker of Catalan - and, of course, an internationally recognizable woman footballer. Even the fact that she chose to represent England over Spain may play in her favor with the more virulently nationalistic sections of Barcelona's fanbase. And once she brings Messi home again (as it is increasingly clear they both intend, in some coaching capacity or other) all will be forgiven.
A brief taste of what is to come was on display the night of the Catalonia-Basque Country friendly. Fans cheered raucously every time Messi touched the ball - he is slower now, of course, but still possesses the visionary passes to split defenses in two. The Athletic Bilbao defender marking him was over ten years his junior, but still she could only shake her head and smile when he escaped her ten minutes before half-time and scored a brilliant goal off an equally brilliant assist from Fabregas. He celebrated with a modestly blown kiss to their daughter, but the fans and their highly amused teammates kept clapping until he went up to his wife and gave her what might be called in some parts "a right proper snog." When she then went over to the dugout and substituted herself by trading her brother her "#4 Fabregas" jersey in exchange for her daughter and a seat on the bench, they laughed and clapped again.
The match did what it was meant to - it raised money, and it won hearts. The only pity of it is that it took until now for Barcelona to realize what Leo Messi has known since he was thirteen: Francesca Fabregas is every bit as brilliant as he is at football.
Anyone watching their joint post-match press conference could have told you one other appealing fact about Cesca Fabregas: she and Leo Messi are still, after almost fifteen years and a child together, utterly stupid in love with each other. They have an interesting dynamic, to be sure - Messi wasn't joking when he said she could speak for herself. She can speak for him, too, and probably better than he does, though she looks at him before every answer to make sure she isn't taking a question he would rather address himself. She never is, but she always checks.
The one time Messi's interest level rises above "dying of boredom" is towards the end of the presser. Fabregas has fielded questions about the match, about the Catalan and Basque separatist movements, about Guardiola, about her brother, about Messi, and finally there is a question about her: one of the journalists asks if her work with the women's development program at Barcelona is for her daughter.
"My daughter is a four-year-old, not an athlete," Fabregas retorts, choosing to disregard the fact that the only way that her child might fail to possess the greatest sporting pedigree in Spain would be if their tennis federation finally figured out how to clone Rafael Nadal. "And I have no idea whether she will be an athlete. I'm not doing this for her, I am doing it for myself, and for any other girl who dreams of playing football for Barcelona."
The journalist misses her point. But surely her daughter will be an athlete, he protests. Surely a child born in Barcelona, a city of such great athletics, the daughter of Lionel Messi -
"This is also a city of great architecture. Maybe she will be an architect."
"An architect?" Messi repeats, looking up from his hands for the first time. Clearly this is not a possibility that has occurred to him before. He thinks for a moment, then beams at his wife. "An architect. That would be good."
So don't cry for Leo Messi, Barcelona. You (and football) may miss him, but he's doing just fine.
source: Sports Illustrated
companion fic: five teammates francesca fabregas never had
notes
1. it takes a village. thank you to acchikocchi, dorkorific, here_instead, nahco3, vaginal_parfait and vlieger for their interest and encouragement, aramley, distira, eileenyx, kfunk22, louis_quatorze, mardia and tabacoychanel for their help and criticism, and of course stickmarionette, who when I said, "I'm thinking about writing an AU where Cesc is a girl," replied, "do it!"
2. hopefully this is obvious, but in case not: nearly all the "sources" in this fic are pastiched from real ones, which are linked directly beneath each one. the writing is almost entirely mine, but the interview with Cesc and Phil and the Kickette post about Leo's imaginary girlfriend both contain some unaltered text from the original, and the description in the Rod Liddle article of non-Brits in the WPL as "Jenny Foreigners" comes not from anything written by Rod Liddle but this article by Georgina Turner. not a source for any text or stylistic elements, but for the public reaction to Cesca described in the Sid Lowe article, compare this article about the role Johan Cruyff's wife may or may not have played in his decision not to attend the World Cup in 1978.
3. I have knowingly altered the real events upon which this fic is based in two places: I changed the birthdates of the Fabregas siblings so that they were born in the same year, and I shoehorned the English women's football team into the Beijing Olympics, even though they didn't qualify and likely wouldn't have been allowed to participate even if they had. I hope you will forgive these and any other unwitting errors on my part, but feel free to point them out for my edification.
4. I'm probably not the right person to write a story about the state of women's football right now, the lack of funding, the media disinterest, the ingrained sexism, the basic inequality that guarantees that Cesc Fabregas, if he were a woman, would have a vastly more difficult life. however, nobody else was writing that story, and I think it needs to be written. it came out as a love story when I tried, and I gave it a happy ending because that's the way I want love stories to end. if you're interested in the reality behind the fairy tale, I can recommend From A Left Wing as a good starting point.