Abidal opens up on his public fall-out with Messi

The former FC Barcelona director of football gave his side of the story regarding his public falling out with Messi last year.

Eric Abidal stands by his controversial comments on the Barcelona squad last year but insists he has cleared the air with Lionel Messi over the matter and believes it’s now water under the bridge.

In February 2020, Messi furiously took to Instagram to call out Abidal’s remarks on the players’ work ethic following Valverde’s dismissal as manager.

The captain accused Abidal of tarnishing the players’ reputation. He also saw it as an attempt to lay the blame for Valverde’s sacking and challenged him to give names.

Messi: “Finally, I think that when players are talked about, names should be given because, if not, we are all being dirtied and it feeds comments that are made and are not true.”

— infosfcb (@infosfcb) February 5, 2020

But Abidal, who played alongside Messi under Pep Guardiola at Camp Nou, has defended his comments and insisted his former teammate was not to blame for Valverde’s fate either.

“I think I was correct,” Abidal told The Telegraph. “They needed to train harder in my opinion.

“In my time with Guardiola, it was ‘you want the best? Ok, you have to train like the best. You will win everything, only if you do the job during the week’. This is what I said. I never said the players wanted to get rid of the coach.

“Messi spoke to me personally as well. We had a strong conversation, but I can accept it. No problem because you have to be transparent. I was very comfortable because he was the only player who talked to me like this, the only one. I respect that.”

Abidal added: “I also understand Messi is the captain and he wanted to defend the squad, but I never said that Messi told me to put the coach out. Never.

“I don’t have to fix anything with Messi, our relationship has not changed from my point of view. From his point of view, I don’t know, but, for me, the situation is over.

“We have exchanged many messages, and he knows what I think. I didn’t want to turn a small situation into a global situation and put the whole club in trouble.”