Barcelona watched their La Liga title hopes crash and burn at the weekend.
Entering their final league clash at Camp Nou, the Blaugrana already knew that their chances of preventing one of the two Madrid teams from conquering Spain were slim at best.
At one point, it looked as though the Catalans were going to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in La Liga history, but draws against Atletico Madrid and Levante ultimately killed their momentum.
Barcelona 1-2 Celta Vigo
And clearly those disappointing results fed into Barcelona's tepid performance against Celta Vigo, ultimately losing 2-1 on home soil to confirm a second consecutive season without La Liga glory.
It was all the more painful for the fact that Ronald Koeman's men had actually started the stronger team and took the lead just before the half-hour mark courtesy of a fine header from Lionel Messi.
However, Barcelona's advantage lasted all of 10 minutes with Santi Mina drawing the scores level, before popping up in the second-half on the verge of stoppage time to bag Celta's winning goal.
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End of Barcelona's title hopes
Marry that to Real Madrid securing a 1-0 win at Athletic Bilbao and Atletico notching a dramatic winner through Luis Suarez and the Barcelona squad went home with their tails between their legs.
However, if anybody from Koeman's squad could hold their head up high then it was undoubtedly Messi whose 2021 form has been the biggest reason behind Barcelona's New Year renaissance.
And with his 20 La Liga goals and various league-topping statistics ultimately coming in vain, you'd understand if a frustrated Messi once again entertained the idea of looking for pastures new.
Worrying footage of Messi
Besides, fascinating footage from beIN SPORTS USA showed 'Not Seen On TV' clips of Messi looking incredibly disheartened, disillusioned and downbeat as Barcelona fell part against Celta.
While that might seem normal for a player losing a match, it's pretty damning within the context of Messi's recent years at Barcelona and the way his teammates have constantly let him down.
And with Barcelona still unable to tie down Messi to a new contract, perhaps the Argentine's forlorn body language is yet another painful indicator that he doesn't consider his future in Catalonia.
Well, either that or we're reading too much in Messi's behaviour, but why don't you decide by checking out the footage down below? It's fair to say that it's a pretty revealing watch...
It's just so sad seeing Messi like that, isn't it?
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While there's no denying the quality in this Barcelona squad, we're inclined to think that Messi has never been so far ahead of his teammates in terms of raw ability - and it makes for painful viewing.
You can really tell in the latter stages that Messi is trying every trick in the book to make something work, only to become more and more frustrated as his efforts are denied by Eduardo Coudet's men.
At the end of the day, it's natural that a player kissing goodbye to their title hopes would look as gutted as Messi does in the footage, but it surely stands for much more than that in his case.
And with the very real possibility that it could have been Messi's final ever game at Camp Nou, seeing the great man walk off the pitch looking so broken becomes all the more heart-wrenching.