Barcelona have to prepare for life after Messi. Fati just might be the answer

It's been said that sportsmen die twice, the first time when they retire. And when that sportsman is Lionel Messi, everyone else dies, too.

This might sound like a wild exaggeration, and of course it is... or is it? This week, at least, it didn't feel so far off. When Messi collected the Ballon d'Or on Monday night, voted the world's best player for the sixth time a full 10 extraordinary years after the first, he said something with a power that belied its banality, a simple truth. That day in 2009, he'd arrived in Paris with his three brothers; now, in 2019, he came with his three children.

"I am 32," he said, "and retirement is getting nearer."

No, please, no.

This was nothing new, no shock, and yet somehow hearing it, being confronted by it, a fact laid out so bluntly, was shocking. Everyone knew that he was 32; everyone also knew that few players play much beyond 34, if they even get that far. Most even knew that, according to France Football, his attempts to convince Neymar to join Barcelona included a line that ran something like: in two years, I'll be gone. They knew, too, that time waits for no man, even one able to bend it. It's just the way it is: As there is a beginning, there is an end; as there is life, there is death. But there was something in the reaction that said: Bloody hell, Leo, not that.

Jorge Valdano, teammate of Diego Maradona and a World Cup winner with Argentina, says: "When they're playing, footballers never talk about the end of their careers for the same reason that human beings don't talk about death: because it frightens them." The worst thing, he says, is the "void." With Messi, what happened this week underlined that the end, the fear, is not just his; it belongs to everyone. The void is vast. All of which might be ludicrously overdramatic, but it was impossible not to feel that pang of sadness the second he said it, a wave of nostalgia washing in and then retreating. A part of something, of us all, slipping away with the tide.

"Time flies, it seems to go ever faster," Messi said. Soon, it will be gone.

Everyone knows that, but it was like they didn't want to see it. The reaction spoke of an unwillingness to accept, a desire to escape the inescapable, almost a panic. "Retirement" was the word that led every report, the end of an era. Psychologists genuinely do talk about retirement as a kind of death, especially for people in sports. Strip away all the noise and this is what really matters: Think about it, and though it was entirely normal, totally natural, no big thing, it was in fact the biggest. This was the most significant line Messi has ever said in public.

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The former president of the Spanish government, Mariano Rajoy, was asked this week what the key to Real Madrid's future is. Rajoy is a Madrid fan. "Messi going to Australia," he said. Madrid being the future, he was suggesting, begins with Messi being the past. He forgot four Champions League titles in five years, perhaps, but there was something in it. It was a joke, but many a true word is said in jest, and it was one that reflected how significant Messi has been, how his professional passing might change everything; how a different time, a new and uncertain age starts the day that he doesn't.

Betis winger Joaquín, who plans to play until he is 40 or beyond, was asked about it. "Well, he hasn't got my physique," he joked, so he will be gone sooner. For some, there was a glimmer of hope in there, however fleeting. And what if Messi does have that physique? What if he could get it somehow? What if there was a way?

For Barcelona fans, the prospect of an imminent post-Messi era is an appalling one. And nor is this just culés. Suddenly confronted by it this week, as if reminded of their mortality, many foresaw just how appalling that prospect is, facing those fears. Too great, perhaps, too dramatic: Who knows? It may not be so bad, but fears that were ignored are not going away now.

Another example: Lionel Scaloni, the Argentina manager, said he hoped that this summer's Copa America might not be Messi's last. It's as if the lid had been opened, like they had finally spotted the elephant in the room, and now they can't not see it. Pandora's box spilling out Messi's retirement.

One measure of its significance is to look at how quickly Barcelona moved given those concerns. Listen to the things they said, the way they said them. At boardroom level, Barcelona have long been afraid of Messi, of being left exposed by him. He dominates everything for good and, it's worth adding, sometimes for bad too. Club president Josep Maria Bartomeu has admitted that the first thing visiting directors ask him when they take up their seat at the Camp Nou before kick-off is almost always: Is Messi playing? This weekend, Mallorca's directors may, like so many others are doing now, ask how much longer he will be playing. Retirement is near, but how near?

However soon, it is too soon.

And where, Bartomeu and Barcelona wonder, does that leave them? How do you manage that? How do you get through it? How do you prepare for it? Can you ever? How do you maintain some control, prevent a crisis, stop people from losing faith entirely, limit the damage? Hold it off, for a start.