American football, its exponents are often fond of saying, is the ultimate team sport. With victory requiring 46 players spread across offense, defense and special teams to perform as close to their best as possible and frequently contingent on telepathic understanding between players executing blocking schemes, route concepts, pass coverages and pressure packages, it is tough to find a flaw in their argument.

In that sense, it is a contradiction that the quarterback position, being the most important for any team, commands so much of the attention. 

Most of the focus will be on the signal-callers in Super Bowl LVII, and rightly so. Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are making history in becoming the first black quarterbacks to face off in a Super Bowl in the Kansas City Chiefs' mouth-watering clash with the Philadelphia Eagles and are both candidates to win the MVP award on Thursday at the NFL Honors ceremony in Phoenix.

While that pair of superstars will obviously have a mammoth part to play in deciding the winner of the Vince Lombardi Trophy, so often it is the game within the game in other areas that settles the NFL's showpiece.

And there are several such granular contests that figure to have a substantial bearing on the outcome in Arizona. Here, Stats Perform digs into the numbers in examining three matchups that could decide Super Bowl LVII.

Chris Jones vs. Isaac Seumalo and Jordan Mailata

When the Chiefs have needed him most in the postseason, Chris Jones has typically delivered. Jones is in the curious position of being established as one the premier defensive linemen in the NFL but still arguably being underrated.

While so much emphasis is placed on the offensive side of the Chiefs' Super Bowl LIV comeback four years ago, Jones was the man who ensured the San Francisco 49ers could not respond with the disruption he provided up front.

In the AFC Championship Game this season, it was Jones – deployed off the edge rather than his familiar interior spot – who easily beat Cincinnati Bengals right tackle Hakeem Adeniji and brought Joe Burrow down for the key fourth-quarter sack that ended a prospective game-winning drive for the Bengals and gave the ball back to Mahomes to lead the Chiefs to a decisive field goal.

Ranked third among all defensive linemen in his aggregate pass rush and run block win rate, Jones is a versatile force who has the talent to disrupt the best-laid plans of the Eagles.

The Eagles rank first in pass block win rate and second in run block win rate, encapsulating the well-rounded nature of their ultra impressive offensive line. However, there are weaknesses, with right guard Isaac Seumalo (61.5 per cent) well below the 70.5 per cent pass block win rate average for his position and left tackle Jordan Mailata (74.3 per cent) only just above the NFL baseline of 72.9 per cent for his spot.

As such, Jones will almost certainly see snaps on the interior where he lines up against Seumalo and others where he is one on one with Mailata. Their ability to hold their own against the best defensive player on the field will go a long way to determining whether the Eagles can justify their status as slight favourites.

Travis Kelce vs. Avonte Maddox

The trade of Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins ultimately did no damage to the Chiefs' status as one of the NFL's pre-eminent modern offenses, with Kansas City leading the league in Efficiency Versus Expected (EVE) on offense in 2022.

With Hill out of the picture, Kelce has unsurprisingly served as the focal point of the attack. Arguably no two players in the NFL enjoy the same level of symbiosis as Mahomes and Kelce consistently display, the future Hall of Fame tight end continuing to confound defenses with his route-running and ability to create yardage after the catch.

His domain while generating those headaches for defenders has primarily been the slot. 

Of Kelce's routes in the 2022 season, 300 have come from the slot, compared to 173 from the outside receiver position and 139 from a traditional tight end alignment. 

Kelce's burn rate, which measures how often a receiver wins his matchup on a play where he is targeted, is 75.0 per cent from the slot, the seventh-best among slots with at least 25 targets. In other words, he has created separation from his defender on three quarters of his slot targets in 2022.

Shutting down Kelce is a challenge few have had much success rising to, but the Eagles have a player who is statistically the best remedy to the threat he poses in slot cornerback Avonte Maddox.

Maddox's combined open percentage allowed across man and zone coverage of 18.1 per cent is the best of any cornerback in the NFL. By that measure, Maddox is the elite at the slot corner position, and he will need to prove it for the Eagles to have any hope of containing Kelce and, in turn, the Chiefs.

Jalen Hurts vs. Chiefs' front seven

Two weeks removed from winning the AFC Championship Game on a sprained ankle, there is the question of how much of a running threat Patrick Mahomes can be in a game where even a sporadic impact from him on the ground would make a significant difference to keeping the Eagles' defense off the front foot.

While he has recently dealt with a sprained shoulder, there will be no such doubts surrounding Hurts. The Eagles will run the ball, and Hurts will be integral to their game plan in doing so.

Hurts and the Eagles have, for the entirety of the season when the starting quarterback has been healthy, done an outstanding job of keeping defenses guessing with a diverse run game built around the zone-read and the read-option.

That presents a rather large problem for the Chiefs, whose primary weakness on defense is – you guessed it – against the run.

The Chiefs rank 17th in run defense EVE, with their performance in that metric dropping to 24th against the rush in neutral situations – when the offense could realistically either run or throw the ball. 

Philadelphia's offense thrives by creating doubt in the defense over what is coming in neutral situations, excelling at doing so to the point in the NFC Championship Game where San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner – who represents the gold standard at his position – was left stationary for key plays as indecision superseded his usually outstanding instincts.

Kansas City's linebackers are not on the same level as Warner, with starters Nick Bolton and Willie Gay Jr. both below the average in run defense win rate (17.7 per cent) for the position. 

Their fallibility in that regard is something the Eagles will endeavour to attack time and again in pursuit of their second Super Bowl. It will take an intelligent and likely more measured approach from a defensive front known for its aggressiveness and an exceptional display of awareness from the Kansas City linebackers for the Chiefs' defense to avoid a long and very painful evening on the biggest stage.

Steve Wilks will be hired as the San Francisco 49ers' new defensive coordinator.

The move was reported by ESPN and NFL Network on Tuesday as the 49ers moved quickly to replace DeMeco Ryans.

With Ryans as DC, the 49ers fell painfully short of this year's Super Bowl following a remarkable run of misfortune that saw the team robbed of four quarterbacks through injury by the end of the NFC Championship Game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Ryans' impressive work saw him land the Houston Texans' head coaching job, leaving the 49ers with a hole to plug on Kyle Shanahan's staff.

Shanahan is turning to Wilks, who was available after the Carolina Panthers hired Frank Reich as their new head coach.

Wilks had been the Panthers' interim coach last year, taking over after Matt Rhule was fired and finishing the season with a respectable 6-6 record.

Rhule's final game as coach, with Wilks his defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach, was a defeat to the 49ers.

Wilks described himself as "disappointed but not defeated" when the Panthers instead hired Reich for the 2023 season.

But if Wilks has ambitions of landing another top job, his new role with the 49ers looks a good fit.

Ryans' predecessor Robert Saleh also departed for a head coaching role with the New York Jets.

Before his 12 games at the helm of the Panthers, Wilks had a single season as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals in 2018, when they were a miserable 3-13 in the 49ers' NFC West.

Sarina Wiegman is not making any early call on Beth Mead's involvement in this year's Women's World Cup.

Mead won the Player of the Tournament award and the Golden Boot as England celebrated an historic triumph at their home Women's Euro 2022.

The Arsenal striker also finished in second place in last year's Ballon d'Or Feminin voting and would have a key role to play for Wiegman's Lionesses in Australia and New Zealand in July.

But Mead's status ahead of the finals is uncertain as she continues her recovery from an ACL tear in November.

As Wiegman named her latest England squad on Tuesday, she was asked if consideration had been given to plans that did not include Mead.

But featuring at the World Cup remains a target for the 27-year-old.

"It's a little early to say. I don't want to push it. She's had so many things going on," Wiegman said of Mead, whose mother died last year from ovarian cancer.

"We'll see how her rehabilitation goes, then we'll look at the future. I don't want her to look too far forward right now because of her situation.

"She had of course other private issues. I left the knee situation until now as I just wanted her to be okay and get settled with the situation and sadness she had around her.

"She told me she's doing well. She really wants to make [the World Cup]. First, she needs to settle and we will see from there. For now, I won't push that."

Buffalo Bills co-owner Kim Pegula is recovering from suffering a cardiac arrest last June, but "where she ends up is still unknown".

American tennis star Jessica Pegula, the world number four, provided an update on her mother's condition in a long Players' Tribune article on Tuesday.

The five-time grand slam singles quarter-finalist revealed her sister, Kelly, saved their 53-year-old's mother live by giving her CPR after their father woke up to her going into cardiac arrest nine months ago.

Kim, co-owner and president of both NFL franchise the Bills and NHL team the Buffalo Sabres, is back at home and doctors are "blown away" by her "miracle" recovery.

She is, however, suffering from significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues and the family have come to the realisation that she is unlikely to resume her roles with the Bills and Sabres.

Jessica revealed that three months before her mother fell ill, her sister had decided to learn CPR.

She wrote: "Kelly called me one day and said she was going to get her CPR certification as a requirement for a job she wanted. I said: 'No way, I have been meaning to do that but haven't gotten around to it.”

"She relayed to me how nervous she was about it and hoped she passed the class. I remember her telling us what she was doing in our family group chat, and my mom even responded: 'Nice Kells! Now if we have a heart attack, you can revive us.'"

She added: "Today, my mom is still in recovery, and although it is the same answer every time someone asks me, it is true, she is improving every day. She is dealing with significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues.

"She can read, write, and understand pretty well, but she has trouble finding the words to respond. It is hard to deal with and it takes a lot of patience to communicate with her, but I thank God every day that we can still communicate with her at all. The doctors continue to be blown away by her recovery, considering where she started, and her determination is the driving force of that."

Jessica was a quarter-finalist at the Australian Open last month, having been considering whether she should call time on her career.

She stated: "Suddenly, I went from 'Let's celebrate top 10 in the world' to 'Do I need to start thinking about my career after tennis a lot sooner than I thought?' 'Does my dad and family need help?' 'Maybe I should just go back to school and work for the family.'

"I am 28 and I take pride in being able to handle every situation thrown at me, but this was A LOT."

She was also hit hard by seeing Damar Hamlin collapse on the field while playing for the Bills last month.

"Then in January we came to some bizarre, messed-up, full circle moment." she wrote. "Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during the Monday night game against the Cincinnati Bengals. My stomach sunk because it felt like the exact same thing all over again."

Last year's French Open women's doubles runner-up continued: "It has been a tough year, but at the same time I feel lucky and blessed. I am thankful she is still with us when other families may not have been so lucky.

"That she even had a chance at recovery when the first week in the hospital seemed so dim. Thankful for the doctors that aided in her recovery. Thankful that she is now home, that she gets to watch the Bills, Sabres and my tennis matches. She never watched my matches before, because she got too nervous. Now she watches all of them.

"Thank you to the Buffalo community for your patience. I know you have wanted answers and it took us a while to get there, but it finally felt like it was time. Thank you to everyone who has respected privacy and shown me and my family tremendous support throughout this ongoing journey."

Carlo Ancelotti suggested Spanish football has a "problem" with racism after Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior was abused again on Sunday.

LaLiga launched an investigation on Monday after social media footage showed racist insults being directed at Vinicius during Madrid's 1-0 defeat at Real Mallorca on Sunday.

The 22-year-old was subjected to racist abuse in both of Madrid's matches with city rivals Atletico Madrid this season, while LaLiga filed hate crime charges to Spanish courts after similar incidents in December's game with Real Valladolid.

Vinicius accused LaLiga in December of "doing nothing" to combat racism, and his head coach feels Spanish football must face up to the issue.

"The question I ask is this: What is the problem?" Ancelotti told reporters. "Vinicius? Vinicius' team-mates? What's the problem? To defend himself? What does Vinicius have to defend himself against? What do his team-mates have to defend themselves against? I don't know.

"It seems like the problem is Vinicius, but the problem is what happens around him. Period.

"It is a problem of Spanish football. I am a part of Spanish football and I think it's a problem that we have to solve. Because it seems that Vinicius is the culprit, but he is the victim of something that I don't understand."

Federico Valverde defended Vinicius' exuberant playing style after he was fouled 10 times against Mallorca – the most by any Madrid player in a Spanish top-flight match since Isco against Real Betis in August 2013.

Vinicius has won 79 fouls in LaLiga this season, 25 more than any other player, and Valverde feels Madrid's players must stand up for him to counter any opposition roughhouse tactics.

"He is an incredible person, with a lot of values," Valverde said ahead of Madrid's Club World Cup semi-final against Egyptian side Al Ahly on Wednesday. "On the pitch, he tries to enjoy it, that's the way he is.

"I always say that so many fouls on the pitch is part of the game, we have to defend him as team-mates.

"Another thing is racism and what happens on the pitch, [there is] so much anger. He is a 22-year-old boy. I think Vinicius deserves respect."

Jack Leach feels he belongs in England's Test team as he returns to New Zealand for the first time since he was seriously ill on the 2019 tour.

The bowler, who suffers from Crohn's disease, contracted sepsis four years ago after a bout of food poisoning, and subsequently struggled to hold down a red-ball place.

But back at full fitness, Leach was the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket in 2022 with 46, behind only Australia's Nathan Lyon and South Africa's Kagiso Rabada.

Ahead of England's two-match series later this month, Leach acknowledged he had fears about returning to New Zealand, but that he feels secure now in his place with Ben Stokes' side, which has helped hugely.

"I was on a drip and had antibiotics in the other arm [last time I was here]," said Leach, who reached 100 Test wickets in Pakistan at the end of the year.

"It slowly got worse and worse. I was really struggling for a bit. It wasn't great, but that's all in the past now. I'm having too much fun to get ill now.

"It can be stress-related, so maybe being a little bit more relaxed is actually helping that side of my health as well. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

"I always felt like cricket was an individual sport within a team, but this feels like such a team.

"It's something I feel very lucky to have experienced because it's a lot more enjoyable.

"It's been probably the most important thing for me, that backing and feeling like I belong.

"I'm just trying to enjoy it as much as I can and do as much as I can for the team."

Richard Cockerill will leave his role as England forwards coach after the Six Nations, while Richard Wigglesworth and Aled Walters will join Steve Borthwick's team.

Cockerill stepped in as Red Rose interim head coach after Eddie Jones was sacked in December and retained a role on Borthwick's staff following his appointment as the Australian's successor.

The 52-year-old will be on the move when the Six Nations concludes next month, though, after taking up an offer to become forwards coach of Top 14 side Montpellier.

Borthwick removed Matt Proudfoot and Martin Gleeson from their roles as assistants after he took charge as he started a shake-up, bringing Kevin Sinfield with him from Leicester Tigers.

The England head coach has returned to his former employers once again to recruit Wigglesworth and Walters.

Wigglesworth took over as head coach of the Tigers on a temporary basis following Borthwick's departure for the England job.

The former Red Rose fly-half will become an assistant coach under Borthwick at the end of the season, when Walters will take up his new position of head of strength and conditioning, 

Walters was part of the management team that won the 2019 Rugby World Cup with South Africa and will attempt to help England lift the trophy in France this year.

Christophe Galtier wants cool heads when Paris Saint-Germain step into the Stade Velodrome cauldron to face Marseille on Wednesday, recognising a crunch phase of the season has arrived.

Marseille-born Galtier, who began his playing career with the south-coast team, leads PSG into a Classique at the last-16 stage of the Coupe de France.

It is a meeting of the top two teams in Ligue 1, and PSG will be back in Marseille later in the month for a clash in league competition.

The Parisians also face Monaco and Lille in February, and they host the first leg of the keenly anticipated Champions League last-16 showdown with Bayern Munich next Tuesday.

Asked about pressure during what is his first term at the helm, Galtier said: "There is pressure from the moment you sign the contract. You have to get results.

"It is a month with a lot at stake. We will be playing in three competitions: the league, then tomorrow is a knockout game, and then the tie against Bayern Munich which everyone is looking forward to. That is also a knockout. There is a lot at stake and there are a lot of expectations this month."

Sergio Ramos and Neymar are available after injury, but Kylian Mbappe remains absent with a thigh problem.

Lionel Messi, after his winning goal against Toulouse on Saturday, will again be a player PSG look to for leadership.

"It is not just a last-16 tie but a Classique," Galtier said.

The coach is taking unusual measures to keep his mind on the job, even apparently snubbing family.

"I am trying to close everything from the outside that could be reaching my phone from family members so that I can stay focused on preparing for the game," Galtier added.

"We will need to be ourselves and play at our best level. We will need to be very good technically and have the ability to play under pressure from the opposition.

"Regarding the context, all my players have played in these sorts of games before."

It is this reason that encourages Galtier to believe his team should be able to cope with what should be a raucous atmosphere, feeding tensions on the pitch.

"We can't be overcome by dissent," he said. "There could be incidents on the pitch. It is the biggest game of the year for many people, so we need to stay clear-headed.

"I don't tell them to stay calm, because if you are calm you will fall asleep. You simply need to be clear-headed and play with quality."

Valtteri Bottas believes Alfa Romeo must "aim for better" this year in Formula One, as the team look to put a disappointing 2022 season behind them.

The former Mercedes driver made the move to the Italian constructor last year after several successful years in the sport, but struggled to deliver on the track.

Though he picked up a number of sturdy finishes, the Finn failed to notch a podium and finished 10th overall, while team-mate Zhou Guanyu came home in 18th.

Speaking at the launch of their new C43 car, though, Bottas is looking to build on a sixth-place constructors' championship finish last term in his sophomore season with the team.

"We need to achieve more, it's simple as that," he said. 

"We always need to aim for better, aim for higher, the whole team, and myself included.

"We always need to keep improving, that's what drives us, so, [we are] expecting better consistency, more points, better results. How to get there, that’s the tricky bit."

After several years near the top of the sport with Mercedes, Bottas acknowledged Alfa Romeo presented a different set of challenges 

"It's definitely been interesting," he added. "In this team, I feel like my role has been very different to what I've ever had, really, in Formula One.

"It's a really open situation in the team and I love to know always as much as I can. 

"The development of the car balance throughout the whole of last year has gone into the right direction.

"That work continues, and we'll see with this new car. I think hopefully everything is in an even better place in those situations, and we [will] keep working hard."

Premier League clubs have become "incentivised to sometimes push the rules to the limit, if not beyond" and Manchester City may not be the only team to face an investigation into their affairs, according to a leading football finance expert.

The Premier League announced on Monday it had referred a number of alleged breaches of the competition's rules to an independent commission, with some of those dating back as far at the 2009-10 season.

In response, City said they had "irrefutable evidence" that would be presented in their defence against the accusations.

Kieran Maguire, author of the book The Price of Football, said isolating City could be seen as making a "scapegoat" of the Premier League champions, and he suspects investigators will also look closely at the finances of other clubs.

Speaking to Stats Perform, Maguire said: "Certainly we have seen some clubs, in terms of the financial submissions that they've made, make fairly significant claims as to the impact, for example, that COVID had on their finances, and they've claimed that COVID cost them money in a myriad of ways, some of which have certainly raised eyebrows as far as observers are concerned.

"So if Manchester City are charged, you would think that Manchester City would say to the Premier League, 'well, you've investigated us and charged us, then surely you have a responsibility to do this for other clubs as well'.

"If the Premier League don't do that, it could be seen that they're trying to make a scapegoat of Manchester City, who are unpopular with certain other elements of the English football establishment because they represent new money, and old money doesn't like new money in all aspects of life, it doesn't have to be sport.

"Therefore you can understand why there's likely to perhaps be enthusiasm for this to move on. And that's going to be bad news for football as a whole because then it becomes who's got the best lawyers, and the best accountants, as opposed to who's got the best strikers and centre-halves and midfield players."

If the independent commission finds City to have breached financial guidelines, they could face a variety of punishments, ranging from fines to points penalties, or even expulsion from the league.

City are controlled by the City Football Group, which is owned by Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Since a 2008 takeover, the club have invested heavily in infrastructure and players to develop the dominant team in England.

It remains to be seen how City come out of this saga, if found to have transgressed.

"There's a lot of politics in English football," said Maguire. "I think that the preferred punishment would be a points deduction, because the argument would be that if it was just a financial punishment, given the wealth of the owners, given that it is effectively a sovereign wealth fund which is the benefactors of Manchester City, that a financial penalty would not actually particularly harm the club.

"Therefore, you need to do something which would be seen within football itself as being a punishment, and also acting as a deterrent should any other clubs with equally benevolent owners decide to take or consider a similar action."

Maguire said City face jealousy and "resentment" from rival clubs, and he believes there would not be such interest if a smaller Premier League club came under the microscope.

"It's because it is Manchester City who have won the Premier League for four years out of the last five, who have reached the Champions League final, who have spent around about $1.3billion in building their squad, that we're having this conversation," Maguire said.

"There is jealousy, there is resentment, there is envy. And there's not a lot of admiration, because football doesn't operate like that. Football is a very, very snarky business, where everybody's trying to put each put other clubs down.

"Changing the culture of football into one of ethics, morality, sustainability, is very difficult because of the nature of the people that own the clubs. They tend to be very successful in their own right. And therefore, they are used to getting their own way.

"And in the world of sport, you can't have 20 Premier League clubs all being successful at the same time. Therefore, they're incentivised to outmanoeuvre each other, and they're incentivised to sometimes push the rules to the limit, if not beyond the limit."

Maguire said world governing body FIFA, having been tarnished by scandal itself in recent years, was "unlikely to be in a position to take a moral high ground".

"And it then just simply becomes a game of whack-a-mole, as the authorities find one loophole, they bring a sticking plaster to solve it," Maguire said. "And then you're always in a room with a smarter accountant and a smarter lawyer who will come up with yet another scheme."

Erik ten Hag feels bringing back the fear factor for teams coming to Old Trafford is key to restoring Manchester United to their former glories.

Ten Hag's men have rattled off 13 straight victories in home matches, helping United to third in the Premier League while also securing their place in the EFL Cup final and the fifth round of the FA Cup.

United will look to make it 14 consecutive victories at Old Trafford when they host rivals Leeds United on Wednesday, looking to capitalise on Arsenal and Manchester City both losing over the weekend.

Ten Hag was asked about the importance of getting teams to dread facing United in their own backyard, to which he replied: "It was one of our aims this season to get that back.

"It's part of the process to restore Manchester United. It's great to have the connection with Old Trafford."

Despite United's impressive home form, Ten Hag wants his team to play with the same confidence and freedom on the road, having won just five of their 11 league games away from Old Trafford this season.

"I think home form is good," he added. "The next step is to have that same personality away as we do at home.

"When we play away we have a lot of fans following us and we can do the same away. Pitches are the same size and it is still 11 against 11. 

"We can grow, we still have steps to make but happy with that as well."

The Red Devils will fancy their chances of picking up another three points against Leeds, who sacked head coach Jesse Marsch on Tuesday with the team winless in seven league games and only outside the relegation zone on goal difference.

Ten Hag acknowledged how important the rivalry was for the two sets of supporters, while also expressing his sympathy for Marsch following the American's dismissal.

"It's the match of the roses," Ten Hag said. "It's definitely a big game in this part of England and a big game for us.

"We have City, we have Liverpool, but as well for our fans this game means so much. Our players are aware of that and will know what to do.

"It's always sad if a manager gets sacked. In general, I don't believe it that you sack a manager and get better results.

"Most of the time it doesn't work. But the pressure is high with decision-makers at football and they turn, but if you see the facts, most of the time it doesn't work out well."

Ten Hag will be without a number of key players for Wednesday, with Scott McTominay, Antony and Anthony Martial all absent with injury while Casemiro will serve the first game of his three-match suspension for grabbing the throat of Will Hughes in the 2-1 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday.

But Ten Hag is expecting victory and says he will not accept any excuses should they not achieve that, adding: "I always have to play with the players who are available and we have a squad.

"We have many good players in our squad who are not playing in the starting XI. 

"After a game, I can't say, 'Casemiro is not there, Anthony Martial is not there'. We have to win. United are capable and we have to win the games no matter who is on the pitch."

Lionel Messi held talks with Inter over a potential move to the Italian giants after leaving Barcelona, Javier Zanetti has revealed.

Messi left Barca in 2021 after lifting 10 LaLiga titles and four Champions League trophies with the club, eventually opting to sign for Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain.

But Zanetti, a former team-mate of Messi with Argentina and now vice-president of Inter, says there was a chance the diminutive forward could have joined the 19-time Serie A champions before he chose PSG.

Zanetti pointed to Inter's financial inferiority with their rivals for Messi's signature as the main reason for him going elsewhere, telling DAZN: "I was surprised when he left Barcelona.

"Realistically, we cannot compete with PSG or Premier League clubs, but due to our rapport, we spoke when there was a chance."

Messi has since won a Ligue 1 title with PSG while also finally earning World Cup glory with Argentina, while Inter have struggled to replicate the form that saw them end a 10-year wait for another Serie A title in the 2020-21 campaign.

After missing out on retaining the title by two points to rivals Milan last season, the Nerazzurri are running out of time to overhaul a 13-point gap to leaders Napoli this campaign with Luciano Spalletti's team showing no signs of slowing down the rampant pace that has seen them win 18 of their 21 top-flight games.

The Partenopei's sole defeat came at the hands of Inter in January, and Zanetti has mixed feelings about his team's efforts this term, saying: "We could have done more in the league. We miss some points, but it's part of a path that this team is consistently carrying out.

"Mistakes are normal with such a packed fixture list, but I've always seen a team that wants to impose its style, trying to cause trouble for opponents.

"We've been able to react to difficulties and I find that some criticism has been exaggerated."

Centre-back Milan Skriniar will join Messi at PSG next season after choosing to turn down a new contract with Inter and instead make the move to France at the end of his current deal.

Zanetti hopes Skriniar will remain in the right headspace to help Inter to the best of his capabilities over the rest of the season, with Simone Inzaghi's side still fighting for silverware in the Champions League and Coppa Italia alongside their league duties, having already lifted the Supercoppa Italiana by thrashing Milan 3-0 in Saudi Arabia last month.

"We offered him a contract within our financial reach, but he made a different choice," Zanetti added. "Now we need to put him in the best condition to give his best until the end of the season."