On Monday,  Lionel Messi started following Chelsea. And then the soccer world went berserk.

The context of this impossibly minor 21st-century occurrence – Man Follows Something on Social Media! – does indeed add some levity. Although Messi is a one-club man – unless you count his exploits with Newell’s Old Boys back in Argentina before he hit puberty – Messi is said to be unhappy in Catalonia. How anybody would actually know this is unclear since Messi never ever speaks to anyone about anything. (He was so shy when he arrived in Spain that his teammates thought he was a mute for several months.)

But things are not well at Barcelona. New manager Luis Enrique has introduced a new, more direct style – getting further away from the tiki-taka, HORROR OF HORRORS – which doesn’t seem to suit Messi as well. On Sunday, Barca lost its third game of the league season at Real Sociedad. Messi sat for the first half. On Monday, he skipped practice with something written off as stomach trouble of some kind kind. Funnily enough, club stalwart Xavi had said only a few days prior that gastroenteritis is typically an excuse for some other issue.

Now consider that last November, the avid 27-year-old collector of ancient goal-scoring records had said that he wasn’t sure if he’d finish out his career with Barcelona. He was apparently angry about its handling of his tax fraud case and that new arrival Neymar was rumored to be making about the same amount of money as he was.

Nevertheless, this appears to he just another calculated ploy by Messi’s conniving camp. The tiny maestro has strong-armed the club into extending – and upgrading – his contract in each of the last two seasons, even though his original deal still ran until 2016. With his latest deal signed last May, he is now under contract until 2019, with a buyout clause of some $300 million – about 2½ times the world record fee paid by Real for Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.

Consider also that Messi is literally and figuratively irreplaceable for Barca. Figuratively, because he is Messi. Literally, because the club is banned from buying new players until 2016 for wrongdoings in recruiting underage players like, erm, Messi.

This, then, is probably a play of some sort by Messi’s people, trying to get something done that we might never find out about. Maybe he wanted a better parking spot. Or that corner office.

Besides, you don’t think the hermit-like Messi actually handles his own Instragram account, do you?

Credit: Yahoo News