what champagne do you have on ice?
Champagne? Messi leaving is great for Barcelona as a club and a football side. He's not really responsible for the rot, but Barcelona project leaders have made his presence the cornerstone of toxicity.
I predict that Messi leaving will result in a form of identity crisis and a bit of a blowback season like Real have with Ronaldo, but the narrative will see a massive change. Talented dudes like Griezmann or Dembele will no longer look like they're 15 or 30x worse than a 32-year old and will have a fresh start instead of playing catchup.
I've been saying for 2-3 years now that Messi leaving is the best that could have happened for this project. 2 years ago I wrote Busquets and Pique were cancers, most claimed they can be useful, only Valverde was being an inept pussy and couldn't figure out a way to make it work. Same things were claimed for Messi who was a 'net benefit to the team with production' and the project having a title 'figure out a way to play well with Messi as Xaviesta get old' instead of 'play good football no matter who is there'.
This is no celebration for me. Barca will be better off in time. This 20/21 coronaseason doesn't matter a whole lot. You'd probably lose the title on depth to Real because your 2nd fiddle is somewhat less reliable, too many oldies to shift at once and not enough talent to carry a jampacked schedule.
But with Messi gone now, steering towards a better future with different players at the centre could make you much much better in 21/22 as players also look to perform well in winter Qatar WC.