Messi

by Guillem Balague

  ‘He told me he had seen me speak on television and wanted to chat to me. We ended up meeting in Rome,’ remembers Velasco on the website canchallena.com. ‘He asked me loads of questions and I understood, because I also developed like that. He especially wanted to know how to manage groups and I told him what I’ve always professed, that not everyone should be treated in the same way, because every man has different psychological characteristics. Managing a group is an art and I see that he applies these key principles.’

  Juanjo Brau knows how to handle Leo’s less diplomatic side. He does not impose anything on him, he merely suggests. ‘He knows what I am to him, so at the very least he will pay attention,’ says the physiotherapist. Leo gets the message. And if something has to be negotiated one day, perhaps about exercises, massages or whatever, Brau allows Leo to make the choice: ‘When does it suit you to do it?’ he will ask. By putting him in charge of his own decisions, Brau makes work seem less like an imposition; he makes it more easygoing.

  Pep found out quickly that, in fact, the best way to deal with Leo was to manage his silences. Some players express themselves very openly, but Messi is a man of few words. If he is angry, it is the coach’s job to find out why. Messi rarely says what is wrong, what he is thinking, it has to be drawn out of him; his attitude, behaviour and moods need to be interpreted. You have to get it right in order to be able to apply the solution. That is what Pep refers to when he speaks of understanding all his players: each one is a world unto himself.

  Guardiola took Thierry Henry out to dinner to ask him to make an effort to connect with the team: he seemed faraway, emotionally distant from the changes that were taking place. Henry responded to that invitation by scoring a hat-trick against Valencia. But Pep never thought about taking Leo out for a meal: conversations between them were always going to take place at the training ground.

  Following Velasco’s advice, during his first Christmas holidays with the first team, Pep would give Messi and the rest of the South American players more holiday time so they could be with their families. Leo, though, came back before he was asked, because he was bored and he missed the football and the squad. He wanted to get back to training.

  In a demonstration of affection towards the new leader of the team, in press conferences Guardiola would refer to Leo as the best player in the world. Over and over again. He had come to the conclusion that, despite being shielded by a loving family, Leo needed that affection. As you would do with a needy child, Guardiola opened the doors of his house to him, so that he could come and go as he pleased. Pep suggested less an adult dialogue than a pupil/ teacher one.

  Having established a way of communicating, Guardiola had to continue trying to convince Leo that what he proposed in terms of football would make him a better player.

  From day one, he had imposed a very rigid tactical system, in which everyone had to carry out their roles and responsibilities. And Messi? Senior players such as Xavi and Iniesta bore more responsibility than they had in the previous regime. Leo had to help the team on the pitch from the demanding and not always rewarding space that is the wing. And Pep’s wingers were expected to hog the touch-line, to make defenders ask whether they should close them down or try to prevent the midfield trio from pushing forward. Messi was a very important player, a key one, but in the beginning the team revolved around Xavi, who communicated effortlessly with the coach. Both the central midfielder and the other players from the youth team gave their blessing to Pep’s tactical plan, and Messi had to accept his roles and duties: stretch the play, defend against the winger, join in pressing the opposition and supporting Eto’o, who was to be the central striker.

  But Leo was no longer the same winger who had duelled with Del Horno at Chelsea. Then he had dutifully accepted his role in a team in which he had only just arrived, and whose undoubted centre of attention was Ronaldinho. With Pep, however, he gradually abandoned the wing and began to appear more down the middle: he was asking to be the main protagonist.

  Pep kept insisting on Messi following the strict tactical instructions and he wanted the Argentinian to be more proactive when the team lost the ball. But, when he lost possession, Messi often lost concentration and teams attacked freely down his flank. Guardiola began to realise that it was going to be difficult to maroon him on one side of the pitch, and that doing so would in fact be damaging to the team.

  ‘A “Guardiolina” is a telling-off, but Guardiola-style. In his gentle voice, no shouting, straight to the point but without pointing a finger or offending anyone: looking to convince the player with constructive arguments,’ wrote analyst Martí Perarnau. ‘On one occasion, earlier in his first season, two players were recipients of the message, but, to sweeten the telling-off, they were accompanied by another three so that it would not get out of hand. Needless to say those two recipients were Messi and Henry. They received the “Guardiolina”. They were the ones who failed to obey the ground rules on which this Barça was based. Against Espanyol and Lyon. Other players made more calamitous mistakes … But those mistakes were not responsible for the sinking of Barcelona’s collective team plan in both matches.’

  Leo and Thierry had neglected to press the defenders and to tighten up when possession was lost. They were happy to participate when the ball was at their feet, but would drift out the game when it was time to defend. Against Lyon, the French side controlled the middle of the pitch with ease. ‘This is the match from which we can gain more pointers for the future,’ said Guardiola. ‘It will be used to illustrate to the players very clearly what is expected of them and, if they understand that, we can fight for everything.’ According to Perarnau, Pep had a meeting with both Messi and Henry, in the presence of Iniesta, Hleb and Pedro, and told them, in Perarnau’s words, ‘no more slacking’.

  GB: Was there any match in particular when you said: we have to change this?

  PG: The Lyon game in the first year and Stuttgart in the second, in the knockout stages of the Champions League, were good lessons for me. Their left-wingers caused us many problems. Not only because Leo wasn’t doing his defensive duties … It also happened that Leo was not very often part of the build-up. You could tell this guy needed to play in a position where he would see more of the ball. That is what we wanted in the end.

  GB: In the 4–0 win against Bayern in your first year, he was still on the wing …

  PG: In the first year when we won every title, Leo played on the wing in 95 per cent of the games. That is to say, it’s good to have a system, but sometimes the analysis is simple: as simple as realising that this guy would do something each time he touched the ball, that something would happen. And if you put him in the middle, he would touch it more than on the wing. I mean: if he is convinced he has to play in the centre of midfield in the future he will become an amazing midfielder.

  And so the first tactical modification designed to make the most of ‘the Flea’s’ unstoppable growth was gradually being conceived: during that first Pep season he played mainly on the wing, a ‘false’ winger, who was more often than not cutting inside and roaming in the middle and when he had the ball lots of good things happened. He had scored 30 goals by April (in the previous season, under Rijkaard, he had scored 17), with a dozen extraordinary performances, and another dozen very good ones. Barcelona were playing in the league with a level of efficiency that surprised even the coach. They were heading for the title.

  But it was not always a smooth ride.

  Before the return leg of the Lyon fixture, in the last 16 of the Champions League, Guardiola realised the team was going through a difficult patch, something confirmed not only by the statistics (one victory and two defeats in six matches, including a hard-fought 1–1 draw in the first leg against the French team) but that was also apparent to the naked eye. The team needed a psychological boost, a hug, some sort of reactivating. It is one of those downers every side goes through once or twice a season, a mixture of physical and mental tiredness creeps in.

  Gu
ardiola asked for a video to be compiled in which he could show everything they had been doing, what they had been building up the whole season. All the goals were included in it, set to a soundtrack of The Killers’ song ‘Human’, which, as Ricard Torquemada explains in his book Fórmula Barça, ‘became the hymn of the squad in that last part of the campaign’. Lyon were comprehensively beaten 5–2 and Messi asked for a copy of the DVD of the match.

  Having eliminated the French team, they faced Bayern Munich over two legs in the quarter-finals, two games that were regarded as being evenly balanced. The first leg was played in Barcelona. Bayern had just lost 5–1 to Wolfsburg, who ended up winning the Bundesliga that season, but Bayern could not have imagined what lay in wait for them at the Camp Nou.

  8 April 2009. Champions League quarter-final first leg. Barcelona 4–0 Bayern Munich

  Barcelona: Valdés; Alvés, Márquez, Piqué, Puyol; Xavi, Touré (Busquets, 81st minute), Iniesta; Messi, Eto’o (Bojan, 89th minute) and Henry (Keita, 74th minute). Subs not used: Pinto; Cáceres, Gudjohnsen and Silvinho.

  Bayern Munich: Butt; Oddo, Demichelis, Breno, Lell; Schweinsteiger, Van Bommel, Zé Roberto (Sosa, 77th minute); Altintop (Ottl, 46th minute), Ribéry; and Toni. Subs not used: Rensing; Podolski, Lahm, Borowski and Badstuber.

  Goals: 1–0. 9th minute: Messi, Eto’o assist. 2–0. 12th minute: Eto’o, from a Messi assist. 3–0. 38th minute: Messi puts away a Henry cross. 4–0. 43rd minute: Henry, from a Van Bommel pass.

  El País: Messi had three shots on goal, scored twice and hit the woodwork. He has scored eight in eight in the Champions League this season – he is the top scorer in Europe and, with another two last night, now has 32 since the start of the season. He also provided two assists, one for Eto’o and one for Henry, his tireless team-mates up front.

  The referee booked Messi after Lell stuck a leg out for what seemed to be a penalty. He infuriated the stadium by booking the Argentinian for simulation. Even Guardiola ended up getting sent off.

  Messi resurfaced to link up with Henry after combining well with Eto’o. The Argentinian applied a striker’s finish to a splendid cross by the Frenchman before the roles were reversed. He finished off a move involving some Argentinian wizardry. One half was enough for Barça to annihilate Bayern: 4–0.

  The four goals were scored in a first half defined by Laporta as the ‘best forty-five minutes in the history of the club’. The team were on a roll, and were enjoying every minute of it.

  The president’s words would soon be out of date.

  4. THE 6–2 VICTORY AT THE BERNABÉU

  El País: Are the matches against Mourinho’s Real Madrid especially tough?

  Leo Messi: All matches are tough but those against Real are even more so because of the significance and the ability of their players.

  El País: What do you admire about Real Madrid?

  Leo Messi: I really like playing at the Bernabéu. It is a great club with great history.

  El País: And about Mourinho’s team?

  Leo Messi: Real can kill you on the counter. They have incredibly fast attackers and they break from defence in five seconds and it’s a goal. They don’t need to play well to score three goals. They create many situations for their players, who are very good. I am lucky enough to know Higuaín and Di María well. El Pipa [Higuaín] doesn’t turn up, he touches the ball twice and scores two goals against you. Real can score out of the blue.

  El País: What do you think of Mourinho?

  Leo Messi: I can’t say. I don’t know him; I’ve never spoken to him. I can only speak about what he has achieved, which is many, many titles. I know his players speak highly of him, but I don’t know him.

  El País: Which match against Real Madrid is the most memorable for you?

  Leo Messi: I remember all the ones we won. That is the best, beating Real, because of its importance.

  (Leo Messi interview with Ramón Besa and Luis Martín, El País, 30 September 2012)

  Leo Messi was eating with a fellow team-member when he received a call from Guardiola. He had something to show him. Pep asked him to go to the training centre where he had been studying how to beat Madrid, the first clásico of the young coach at the Bernabéu. The game fell between the first and second legs of the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea, and it demanded total concentration from Barcelona – the crucial two weeks of the season, the ones that would determine the success of the new era. The league was coming to a close and Juande Ramos’ Madrid had won seven straight games and were four points behind the culés with five games remaining. Guardiola stated that he was going to Madrid to win and believed he had discovered how to do that. He had prepared some videos and he wanted to convince Leo to apply a tactical change which could create doubts in the Real defence.

  GB: The 6–2. Did you prepare his position as a consequence of his progression and influence in the team, or did it just materialise with the realisation that their two centre-backs were slow or they preferred to deal with a target man?

  PG: We looked at some images together and we studied how they moved, and that if Leo moved infield he could get on the ball frequently. That was important and was always our main objective: him being very involved in our play.

  GB: And how did you do it? Did you show him videos?

  PG: Yes, we found some images and …

  GG: Just you two?

  PG: Yes, I called him and said: ‘come here and take a look at this.’ He was looking at it and laughing. And that’s it.

  GB: He was laughing because it was so obvious!

  PG: I imagine he thought, ‘I’m going to be all by myself in that position!’ I imagine that’s what he thought. But that is the easy bit, of course. The other, more important, bit remains. ‘I have space but now I need to cover those last fifteen or twenty yards and score.’ Of course there is no video, or any particular image that solves that problem for you. When we speak about tactics, we always speak about players. Without them tactics wouldn’t make sense. At the end of the day, coaches are here only to be at the disposal of the best players. I have always tried to make the best ones play in their best positions, to get them on the ball in the right areas.

  GB: Leo brought his style of play with him from Rosario. Barcelona have given him security, helped him to be professional, made him understand his body. You improve the team but he has essentially always played in the same way. Do you agree?

  PG: He’s a purely intuitive player, which is why you have to give him freedom. Some players ask for freedom without really knowing what to do with it once they’ve got it. You can give it to him. But Barcelona have given him the ability to understand the game, from such a young age, to understand where you have to position yourself, to get into space, and the explanation as to why you’ve played better or worse in this or that position. So I guess that, within his ideas and footballing intelligence, he will have reached his own conclusions: ‘bloody hell, it’s true, doing that suits me better, doing that isn’t as good for me.’ And little by little that education will have helped him find his way of playing.

  After Pep and Leo’s conversations in front of a computer screen, the idea was clear: it was the ideal tactical solution to that match. ‘In a chat before the game, Pep told us how Leo was going to play,’ remembers Piqué. ‘I don’t think we even managed to practise during the week. Leo was going to play as a false number nine, and Samuel [Eto’o] on the wing.’

  Pep Guardiola did not invent the concept of the false number 9, nor did he ever claim to have done so. It was born in the famous Hungary team of the Fifties with Nándor Hidegkuti. Alfredo Di Stéfano was the complete player who also caused damage from a false striker’s position (he was also a false central midfielder, a false winger …). Rinus Michels occasionally gave Johan Cruyff that role in the Seventies and it was brought back by Michael Laudrup in the Dream Team with Johan Cruyff on the bench and a young Pep Guardiola at number 4.

  Silvinho remembers that many things were worked on in the d
ays leading up to the match: ‘There was a strategy, play down the wing with Thierry, Samuel’s movement. All of us – and I mean Guardiola, the squad, the group – outlined a great match. We went 1–0 down and it seemed that everything was going down the drain …’

  And there was an extra factor to be considered: before the game the senior players reminded Leo and the squad not to seek revenge for the guard of honour they had been obliged to form for the new champions at the Bernabéu the previous season. But Leo and those who had played that day could not hide the festering wound. ‘It was a thorn in our sides,’ Messi told La Gazzetta dello Sport. ‘In fact, more so for the poor result and the way we lost, than for the humiliation of the guard of honour.’ That night Barcelona lost 4–1 to the league champions. The thorn was about to be extracted.

  In the idea that Pep had with Leo, the coach explained to him that placing him in the centre would create doubts among the central defenders. If one of them pressured him there the chance would always remain for a one on one with the other defender, either from the forwards or from Leo himself should he be able to get past the first centre-back. ‘The plan worked brilliantly,’ remembers Piqué. ‘Madrid never considered this possibility, the defenders couldn’t come out, and didn’t know what to do, and as a result Leo had masses of space to turn into and run at them.’