For most people that want to see a goat, a petting zoo or farm would be the place to go but for me it was the Parc de Princes, a somewhat large and unassuming concrete bowl in Paris. Ever since my first game back in the U17 Pepsi Cup (featuring Theo Walcott) in September 2005, there has been one constant. Legends such as John Finnigan and Kayode Odejayi come and go, but Lionel Messi has been there throughout.
The ten years between my first and fifteenth games saw only a fleeting interest in the beautiful game, I’d watch my local side Cheltenham Town when my dad took me but the Premier League and International football never really offered much appeal with just the one top flight game attended during that time…a 1-0 win for Blackburn at Villa Park.
Having attended almost 400 games since Cheltenham hosted Dover Athletic in the National League there have certainly been some standouts, seeing Kieran Trippier’s Atletico Madrid debut in front of 55,000 fans at the Metropolitano and 67,000 attending the FA Youth Cup final between Manchester United and Nottingham Forest to name two. But there is one game that I would tell my hypothetical kids about as Felix and May sit in front of the 4D TV asking if there has ever been a player as good as Zac Guinan as I place my holophone down, sit forward and say…”let me tell you about a man called Messi”.
It was through others misfortune that I was offered the chance of a lifetime, an almost all-expense paid trip to the capital of France and home of Qatar vanity project Paris Saint Germain. I accepted under one condition, (as if having the flights, hotel, and food paid for wasn’t enough) that we hop on the metro and rock down to Rue du Commandant Guilbaud.
I had been to what I thought would be Messi’s home forever, Camp Nou, back in 2016 but wasn’t able to watch a game and settled for the dreaded stadium tour. Seeing his Ballon D’or and his seat in the changing room was nice and all but it just wasn’t the same and I knew from that moment that I could never die happy if I didn’t see him play.
The 4pm kick off and reliability and consistency of the Metro in Paris meant that we had some time to kill in the morning so a trip to the Parc Zoologique de Paris, a short walk from our hotel, kicked off a pleasant day. A rather lonely looking lion and some awesome as always penguins were topped by the epitome and definition of grace and majesty, the manatee. But the excitement of a zoo (which I am rather partial to) was all just pre-match build up for a bucket list game.
We picked up lunch on the way back, a salmon sandwich from the Monoprix where I’d heard about the Queen, before chilling in our hotel and making our way to St-Mande Metro station at one. A stop at Franklin D. Roosevelt saw us change trains and we were on course to PSG. After taking out a second mortgage to visit the club shop and waiting to watch the club coach go past (a bit sad, I know) before entering and having to use a third mortgage to buy two cups of coke….which they poured out of a two litre bottle in front of me. I kept the cups so jokes on them.
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A free scoring PSG featuring ‘the trio’ of Neymar, Kylian Mbape and seven time Ballon D’Or winner Messi found scoring about as easy finding a haystack on a needle, scoring five goals on two occasions, seven against Lille, and three against Nantes and Toulouse. So surely I was all set for a high scoring and exciting encounter between the league favourites and relegation fodder? Nah.

It was the trio that garnered the biggest cheer of the night without even doing anything. Fans celebrated as if they had scored when their names were read out for the starting lineup and their headshots appeared on the scoreboard. I won’t hide the fact that I cheered too. That was as good as it got, Brest put up a good fight and defended with their lives as former Leicester City striker Islam Slimani fumbled two good chances to open the scoring. The trio themselves are undoubtedly outstanding players and incredibly talented, but they’re also undoubtedly lazy. Messi didn’t have the season we were expecting last campaign and I could see why, the man had proven his ability to the world already and was now happily strolling about to pick up his paycheck. But somehow he didn’t need to move, he was still able to control the game and pull Brest apart with ease.
Neymar scored the only goal of the game, slotting past Marco Bizot after Messi lobbed the ball over most of the visiting team and to the feet of his Brazilian teammate who moved to fourth on PSG’s all time top scorers list.
Messi almost got on the scoresheet himself but the constant thorn in his side reared its ugly head once more as he couldn’t get his header on target. The one weakness to his game…
Italy’s penalty shootout hero (oof for England) Gianluigi Donnarumma was the saviour once more as he saved Slimani’s spot kick.
The home fans, or ‘ultras’ behind the goal to my left were singing and bouncing throughout, it even started to become white noise at one point as you’d have to look again to remember they were doing it, but their commitment and passion couldn’t be faltered even with what was happening on the pitch. PSG’s rare white shirt home outing was not capped with the most spectacular of displays, but an unforgettable one nonetheless.
So kids, forget about Guinan, Mbappe and Garnacho (who played in the aforementioned FA Youth Cup final), there’s only one player you need to remember from the days of old when cars couldn’t drive themselves and summers were a chilly 39 degrees, Ronaldo was good, so was the other one, but there was only one Messi.