How PSG closed in on signing Messi + Lukaku returns to Chelsea

The Athletic FC Podcast

The Athletic

Football, Soccer,, Sports, Soccer

4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mark Chapman is joined by The Athletic's Adam Crafton, Dermot Corrigan and James Horncastle to take you inside Lionel Messi's extraordinary departure from Barcelona as he prepares to sign for PSG. Where does this move leave Barcelona on and off the pitch? Why has he chosen to join PSG? Is it about more than just the money? Can Pochettino handle the challenge of managing this squad of superstars? What does this say about the Qatari project after ten years in Paris? All this and more as we take you inside one of the most sensational transfers in football history The Athletic's Simon Johnson also joins us to look at Chelsea's £100m deal to bring Romelu Lukaku back to Stamford Bridge from Inter Milan - is this the final piece of the puzzle for Tuchel? And does it mean Premier League title or bust in the eyes of Abramovich? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Athletic. Hello I'm Mark Chapman. Welcome to the Athletic Football
0:16.7	Podcast each week. I'm joined by a selection of writers from the
0:19.7	Athletic to bring you unrivaled access and insight into the biggest stories in football.
0:27.0	And this season we're going to give you even more content every week as well on this feed.
0:30.7	So on Wednesdays we'll have Dan Bardell and Floyes
0:33.8	Hughes going in depth on their favorite piece from the athletic each week
0:37.1	Thursdays it'll be myself and Matt Slater looking at the business of sport and
0:41.2	then on Fridays Dan is back with a comprehensive preview
0:44.4	to set you up for every Premier League weekend. This week we've got the
0:49.6	athletics Adam Crafton, our Spanish football correspondent Dermot Corrigan and our Italian
0:54.1	football writer James Horncastle and we will talk Romulul Lekaku in a little while
1:00.6	with Chelsea agreeing to spend $150 million on him,
1:05.0	but there's only one place to start,
1:07.4	and that is with the tearful Leonel messy saying goodbye to Barcelona and heading to Paris.
1:14.0	Well let's start with you then Adam on Leon and Messie and Paris Saint-Germain. And before I bring inermain, and Dermot can react to this as well.
1:25.6	Maybe I'm just cynical, but I find it very hard to believe anything that I hear about
1:29.1	this transfer story, bar the fact that he will end up at Paris
1:35.0	Raman that's the only thing they do actually believe.
1:34.0	Yeah, I think since the whole process started last Thursday
1:37.4	when this statement came slightly out of the blue about Barcelona's
1:40.7	announcing me and on Messy will not continue at the club. I don't think anyone, even though the club
1:46.0	was saying this was going to happen, I don't think people really believed it. We've seen so many times these
	...

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