Lionel Messi asked me to join Barcelona: Paulinho

Add as a preferred source on Google

Barcelona, Oct 1: Barcelona new signing Paulinho in a recent interview has claimed that attacker Lionel Messi played a huge part making his mind to move to the Catalan side this Summer.

The former Tottenham player signed for the Catalan club in August, completing a €40million deal to depart Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao, however, the player has claimed it was Messi who did the groundwork before the completion of the move.

The Brazilian midfielder has suggested that during a summer friendly between Brazil and Argentina, Messi asked the midfielder if he was interested to join the La Liga side or not and that was the start of the furthermore transfer talks.

"I was ready to take a free-kick along with Willian and another player, I can't remember who. Suddenly, I saw Messi behind me and he was slowly approaching me," he said to El Periodico.

"He came up to me and he said 'are you joining Barcelona or not?'. Just before playing the pass, I turned and said 'if you want to take me then you can take me'.

"I was so nervous about that and after the game, I swapped shirts with him and now I'm happy that I'm here."

Paulinho also suggested that after that approach he was very much adamant to join only the Blaugrana side and he made it clear with the Chinese side and his manager Scolari that it will be Barcelona or nothing.

"It was a unique opportunity for me and I was very clear about it with Felipao [Scolari]. Another team like Barcelona weren't going to come to China looking for me," he added."It was only going to happen once and was too big a chance. Thankfully, he understood. I knew it would be an injustice if the club didn't let me join Barcelona."

Paulinho has already shown his worth in the Catalan shirt where he has scored two goals and assisted one in limited substitute appearances.