Lionel Messi demonstrated his love for his former team, Barcelona, by opening up on his tattoo dedicated to the Spanish giants. 

The 36-year-old spent 21 years at his boyhood club, Barcelona, before leaving for Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 amid the Catalans’ financial troubles. 

But, despite his Nou Camp exit, two years on, the Inter Miami star still holds the Blaugrana dear. 

The heavily-inked soccer star’s shin is entirely covered in black ink with the number 10, the FC Barcelona crest, a soccer ball and the Argentina FA badge. 

Lionel Messi opened up on the significance of his all-back tattoo on his left calf 

The 36-year-old spent 21 years at Barcelona before leaving for Paris Saint-Germain in 2021

The heavily-inked soccer star’s shin is entirely covered in black ink with the number 10, the FC Barcelona crest, a soccer ball and the Argentina FA badge

In an interview with Argentinian comedian Migue Granados, the World Cup winner opened up on its significance.  

‘I got this tattoo to show my love for the club that made me what I am,’ he said, in reference to the Barcelona crest amid the ink. 

‘It turned out well: ball, 10, Argentina, Barca,’ he joked as he explained that he had gotten the design to replace a former tattoo. 

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‘I didn’t like the tattoos I had,’ he said. ‘I had gotten them at a time when I was getting it done for the sake of getting it done. It was the typical thing of going to the tattoo artist: “Tell me what I can get done, ha”. 

‘And then I transformed it a little. I got a few football-related things. What’s more, I would have to give it another go but at this point, but I don’t feel like it anymore […] I more or less steered it, I fixed it a little, right?’

Messi then poked fun at Granados’s tattoos, calling a couple on the comedian’s arms horrible.

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner had all-but ruled out a move to the US after his family set their heart on a return to Barcelona, but that became impossible because of the club’s financial situation – and the player has decided to take the Miami offer over the astronomical sums proposed by Al-Hilal.

Messi had a different tattoo on his left shin and calf before blacking it out in later years

Barcelona were convinced they could afford their former player’s $27m gross salary but because they are in excess of their La Liga-imposed maximum squad spend the club are subject to the Spanish League’s ’40 per cent rule’ meaning they would have to shed $107m from their wage bill to add $43m to it for another player. 

The club’s president Joan Laporta assured Messi’s father Jorge Messi that the club would be able to do that but that it could take up until the end of the window on September 1 and Messi was not willing to wait.

He was still smarting from the summer of 2021 when he came back from his holiday in Ibiza to sign a new Barcelona contract only to be told by the Catalan club that it had been taken off the table because of financial problems.

Instead of a Nou Camp reunion, Messi made the move to Miami, in what marked MLS’s biggest coup, on a two-and-a-half-year deal thought to be with $50-60 million.