Claims of a rift between Messi and Pique are another part of an ugly end at Barcelona

Despite ending up on the winning side on Tuesday night there were times when Lionel Messi looked defeated.

Wearing the number 30 instead of the number 10, and almost hidden from the camera in the tunnel he watched as Kylian Mbappe got all the pre-match attention from Real Madrid players. On the pitch his performance was patchy and his penalty saved by Thibaut Courtois.

On the eve of the game Spanish paper El Pais had ran a story about Gerard Pique advising Barcelona to get rid of him last summer. The day after the match the French papers berated his performance.

It should never have ended this way. He knows it. Barcelona know it too.

Suggestions that Pique influenced Barcelona’s decision to let Messi leave the club are not new. Last November influential journalists, including the editor of leading Barcelona football paper Sport, were suggesting that while Messi had left some friends at the club, other relationships were broken.

Lluis Mascaro, said that Messi felt let down by Pique and believed that Pique had betrayed him by saying to Barcelona president Joan Laporta that it would be 'okay if Messi left'.

The fact that the suggestions resurfaced this week was in part because of the PSG v Real Madrid fixture. And perhaps also because Ferran Reverter, who had been Barcelona chief executive when the decision to let Messi leave was made, left the Catalan club.

Some Barcelona supporters have suggested Reverter was doing the bidding of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez when he pushed for Barcelona to not renew Messi.

Those rumours were rekindled this week when it was suggested by several well-informed Catalan journalists that Perez now wants the available Reverter to move to his construction giant ACS.

It's certainly true that Pique took a pay cut at the start of the season and there would have been a greater reluctance to do that had Messi been renewed even at 50 percent of his previous salary.

But Barcelona claimed the club’s wage bill was still a long way over La Liga's salary cap even without Messi’s wages so it’s hard to imagine Pique’s opinion tipped the balance either way.

It was Laporta being persuaded to not accept La Liga’s deal with investment fund CVC that really cooked Messi’s new contract goose.

Had Barcelona signed with CVC and taken around 250m euros in new money then Messi would have stayed. Reverter was one of those who persuaded Laporta – a romantic at heart who originally wanted the badge of honour of having kept Messi – to side with Real Madrid in turning the deal down because of the subsequent concessions in giving up television revenue.

All that seems to matter more than whatever Pique opined. Pique was never in Messi’s clique.

The barbecues at his home hill-top home overlooking the Costa Brava tended to be attended by neighbours Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho, with Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets also invited.

When Messi jetted into Barcelona last month it was with Alba and Busquets that he dined. The apparent sour ending with Pique, whom he played alongside since their days together in the club’s academy, are a shame all the same.

But it’s all a shame. A shame for Messi that he couldn’t stay at Barcelona until the end of next season when he still plans to move to the US, and a shame for Barça who missed out on giving their greatest ever player a farewell campaign.

After last night’s below-par performance do the Catalan club think they dodged a bullet by not renewing him? They have hardly thrived without him. They are 15 points off the lead in La Liga and on Thursday they play in the Europa League.

They have begun to rebuild but, for all that his debut was impressive, Adama Traore, who struggled to get starts at Wolves, does not compare with the player he has replaced down the right side of Barcelona's attack.

As for PSG, are they disappointed too, having signed a legend only to see him a shadow of his Barcelona self? They will be satisfied enough if he scores in two weeks at the Bernabeu to put them closer to their ambition of a first ever Champions League.

Messi scoring his first goal against Real Madrid since 2018 would please most Barcelona supporters too. Even if the joy seems to have long since gone out of one of greatest player-club relationships football has ever known.