Eamon Dunphy believes Barcelona’s loss would be the Premier League’s gain if Leo Messi decides to leave the La Liga giants as the Catalans bowed out to Juventus in the Champions League quarter-final.
After creating history to defeat PSG 6-1 in their quarter-final second leg to advance to the last eight, Luis Enrique’s side couldn’t repeat the trick after trailing the Serie A side 3-0 from the first leg in Turin.
Barcelona could only manage a 0-0 draw in a game where Juve goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon had few meaningful saves to make.
Speaking on the RTÉ Soccer panel, Dunphy believes the great Barcelona era is now over.
"You saw the ovation they got from their own fans at the end of the game. I think that’s an ovation for a team that has reached the end of a glorious era," he said.
"We should appreciate what they have given the game, what they have given those fans, what they have given European football, world football.
"The signs have been there for a while, but this is definitive.
"No one will ever forget that team. It’s only with regret and sadness that you mark a passing."
Barcelona’s sporting director Robert Fernandez has said that negotiations to extend Messi’s contract which expires at the end of nest season are going "really well", but speculation has continued that the Argentine is considering a move away from Camp Nou.
Despite scoring 45 goals in 45 appearances for club and country – the 29-year-old has already scored more La Liga goals than last season and his tally of 11 Champions League goals is almost double last year’s figure – many have observed that off-field issues have distracted the gifted forward and Dunphy says Premier League fans would be in for a treat if he decided to move to England.
"He’s [Messi] such a great figure in that club, that story," he said.
"I don’t know how much he has got in the tank."
"You might see Messi in the Premier League playing for Manchester City. You might, and what a thing that would be for the Premier League.
"I don’t know how much he has got in the tank.
"They have been on such emotional highs that you can only really go to that places so many times in your life, no matter what sport it is."
Eamon Dunphy believes Barcelona have reached the end of a golden era pic.twitter.com/hXJHbeoanX
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) April 19, 2017
