Chapter 2: Messi's Peak

"Luis, Luis, are you listening to what I'm saying?"

Deulofeu waved his hand in front of his friend's eyes, looking puzzled. "Hmm, I'm listening!" Luis snapped back to reality and replied.

Deulofeu looked skeptical and curiously asked, "What were you thinking just now? I called you several times, but you didn't react."

Seeing his friend's puzzled expression, Luis knew that his curiosity had been piqued. So he came up with an excuse and said, "I was just thinking about how many goals Messi will score this year."

Messi was Deulofeu's idol, so when he heard Luis mention his idol, he immediately became interested. "I think he'll score around sixty or seventy goals," Deulofeu said.

In the 2010-2011 season, Messi scored a total of 57 goals, including 53 for his club and 4 for the national team. His performance this season is obviously better than last year, so there is a high probability that his total goal tally will surpass last year's.

Upon hearing Deulofeu's answer, Luis shook his head with a smile and said, "Gérard, isn't Messi your idol? Why are you predicting so conservatively?"

"Conservative?" Deulofeu looked puzzled. Isn't sixty or seventy goals a conservative estimate? He was curious to know what Luis considered a non-conservative prediction. "So, how many goals do you think Messi will score?"

"I think he can score eighty or even ninety goals!" Luis answered seriously.

"Are you kidding me? Do you know what the world record is?" Deulofeu widened his eyes, wearing an incredulous expression.

The current world record is only 85 goals. If Messi can score eighty or ninety goals, does that mean he has a chance to break the record? But breaking that record is not easy at all.

Gerd Müller set the record in 1972, and for 40 years, no one has come close to it, let alone surpassed it.

Although Messi is great, Deulofeu can't even imagine him breaking that record.

"I know, the current world record is 85 goals in a calendar year, set by German player Gerd Müller in 1972 while playing for Bayern Munich," Luis replied. "But Messi has already scored 46 goals in the first five months of this year, including this match. He is now less than 40 goals away from Müller's record."

"And it's only been five months this year, so he has plenty of time to continue scoring. Based on his current form, I believe this record is not as unreachable as it seems," Luis explained.

Deulofeu was finally convinced. He started counting on his fingers the probability of Messi breaking the world record and didn't disturb Luis any further.

Luis shifted his gaze away from Deulofeu and looked back at the field. After scoring his fourth goal, Messi walked towards the coach's seat along with his Barcelona teammates to find their manager, Pep Guardiola.

"Thank you, Pep. These four goals are for you!" Messi hugged Guardiola and whispered in his ear.

Guardiola patted Messi's back hard, his eyes slightly reddened, and his nose was a little sour. "Thank you too, Leo. You deserve the cheers of 100,000 fans at Camp Nou!"

Every moment of Guardiola's four-year coaching career at Camp Nou flashed before him, stirring up mixed emotions.

As a player, Guardiola was a product of Barcelona's youth academy. He had been with Barcelona for seventeen years since joining at the age of 13.

It can be said that the majority of his professional career was spent at Barcelona.

After retiring and transitioning to coaching, his first team to manage was Barcelona B, the reserve team of Barcelona, thanks to his outstanding coaching performance there.

It was because of his excellent coaching at Barcelona B that he gained the favor of Barcelona and was quickly promoted to coach the first team.

During his four-year tenure with the first team, Guardiola led Barcelona to three league titles, two Champions League titles, two Copa del Rey titles, three Spanish Super Cup titles, two European Super Cup titles, and two Club World Cup titles.

Barcelona's achievements under his coaching were hailed as the "Dream Three Dynasty" by Barcelona fans, the best period in the club's history, without a doubt.

Such brilliant achievements not only elevated his status in the eyes of the fans but also earned him the respect and admiration of the players, including Messi and other Barcelona players, especially the young players he had promoted from the youth academy.

Without Guardiola, these young players, including Messi, might not have had a chance to shine, especially considering how he managed to let go of star players like Ibrahimović and Eto'o.

Without his possession-based tactics, Barcelona's performance wouldn't have been as exceptional.

Now, this influential coach who had guided them to grow and achieve glory was about to leave.

Many young players were feeLuisg uneasy, worrying that they might lose their place in the new coach's tactical system.

Therefore, when they saw Guardiola's genuine emotions, one by one, they mustered the courage to plead with him again:

"Stay, coach! Barcelona needs you!"

"Yeah, please stay, boss! We need you too!"

Guardiola felt a bittersweet mood. He had achieved greatness with Barcelona, and he still had so many outstanding players under his command.

If conditions allowed, he actually didn't want to leave.

However, with the change of the club's president and the departure of Laporta, who was replaced by Rosell, his relationship with Rosell was not good.

In particular, Rosell used the excuse of reforms to purge dissidents, even revoking the honorary presidency of the legendary player and club icon Cruyff, who had made enormous contributions to the team.

This made Guardiola extremely resentful towards Rosell. As the club's head coach, it would be difficult for him to work well without a good relationship with the club's president.

This season, such signs had already appeared. Led by Piqué, some players had gradually shown signs of drifting away from Guardiola's control.

This made Guardiola feel that this was a warning from Rosell using the players' mouths, forcing him to leave.

Therefore, without securing a new position, Guardiola decided to resign from Barcelona.

This was to demonstrate his stance that he was not a traitor to Barcelona but was forced to leave against his will.

So, when faced with the players' pleas for him to stay, he could only smile wryly and shake his head, saying, "Let's not talk about this, kids. The game isn't over yet. Enjoy this match and the cheers from the fans!"

Perhaps Guardiola's refusal to be persuaded by the players affected their mood, leading to consecutive fouls and yellow cards for Barcelona in the subsequent matches.

Within five minutes, both Thiago and the team captain Puyol received yellow cards. In the 87th minute, Messi missed a one-on-one opportunity. If he had scored, he would have completed a quintuple, a miraculous feat of scoring five goals in a single match.

In normal circumstances, Guardiola would have shown his dissatisfaction on the sideLuises. But this time, he chose to sit calmly on the coach's bench, sipping water and not leaving his seat.

The score was already 4-0, and there was only one minute left in the game, plus a few minutes of injury time. The opponents had no chance of a comeback.

As long as the players didn't make any more silly mistakes resulting in red cards, everything else didn't matter.

But even if they did receive red cards, it didn't matter because Barcelona had long lost the chance to win the league title this season. Real Madrid had opened a seven-point gap in the standings, and the result of the final match wouldn't affect the outcome.

In such a carefree game, Barcelona could simply play casually.

After four minutes, the referee blew the final whistle. With Messi's amazing four goals, Barcelona defeated their local rivals Espanyol 4-0 at home, concluding their home matches for the season in La Liga.

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