Messi

by Guillem Balague

  When Pep found the time, when he saw Leo was willing to discuss the subject, the conversation was as he imagined it would be: he did not feel comfortable; he liked playing in a different way. Leo never told him that Ibrahimović had to go, but as the season went on, Guardiola realised that the two of them were tactically incompatible, and there were too many weaknesses without the ball.

  He knew Leo could be more effective if he was surrounded by a clearly defined organisational structure – he was going to be the unstable element and there had to be stable elements at his side, players who would give offensive organisation to the team. If everyone knew what Messi was going to do, they could apply themselves to offering him the solutions that would allow him to make the most of his creative talent. This would make another vital requirement easier: getting the ball back. If they attacked in a disciplined way, each man in his position except Leo, it would be easier to initiate the pressing. Guardiola wanted to control where the opposition danger came from, and he preferred it to be down the middle; Keita and Pedro, with greater defensive discipline and happy to track back, were going to play out wide in the big games.

  Guardiola said to Leo: ‘You’re going to play down the middle from now on. And you’re going to score a bucketload of goals, three or four per game.’ Four days after the draw in Germany, Pep tried a 4–2-3–1 with Ibra up top and Messi behind him. ‘He was not contributing much. We needed him to get more involved,’ Pep explained the change in a press conference. ‘He is capable of playing very well in all positions. Last year he played on the right wing 90 per cent of the time. He knows that, even if he plays there, he can drift inside whenever he wants to. But if he plays as a winger, we are more predictable.’

  With Ibra on the bench, Messi moved into the middle in the return leg against Stuttgart at the Camp Nou: 4–0 to Barcelona with two goals from ‘the Flea’, who was also involved in the third. The dip in form was forgotten; he had scored seven goals in three matches. His goalscoring rate would shoot up from that moment. He would not have been able to do it from the wing. Nor as a classic number 9; centre-backs would have eaten him up.

  Did Guardiola find him his position or did Leo keep knocking on the door until he got what he wanted? A close look at the evolution of the process suggests that it was surely a bit of both.

  At a press conference in Buenos Aires in summer 2013, Pep explained in detail: ‘When I started at Barcelona, Laudrup would appear down the middle and I, the midfielder, could pass the ball everywhere; there was one more of us in midfield, we outnumbered our opponents. And I would say, bloody hell, I like this. Leo understood what playing down the middle was all about very quickly. He would have picked it up if I told him to go and play at left-back. Ah, and you will say, well, you have that monster of a player, and that makes everything easy. Would you have done it without Leo? Well, maybe not.’

  Everything that Pep decided at Barcelona was for Leo, so that Leo would score goals and the team, and Guardiola, win matches. It is therefore a selfish decision by the coach: that is how Guardiola understands it himself. Or, put another way, Pep’s generosity towards Messi’s wishes was not the only factor. But it got to a point where he had to take the decision, and in his second season in charge he effectively gave the team to Leo.

  GB: When he arrives at La Masía and Rodolfo Borrell says to him: ‘Okay, you start on the wing’, Leo answered him: ‘No, no, I play in the hole.’ Subsequent coaches, with the exception of Tito, ask him to do the same, despite his natural habitat being down the middle. He finally ends up playing regularly as a second striker with Gratacós at Barça B. Rijkaard puts him back on the wing and, when you arrive, I imagine that Leo was hoping to move to a position where he could see more of the ball. Is his impatience or need to be the centre of operations noticeable?

  PG: No. It is true that you get more of the ball down the middle than on the wing. You have to be more patient on the wing. In reality, teams were gradually learning how to silence the danger that Dani Alvés and he brought down the wing and in the end you reach the conclusion that this guy has not touched the ball in twenty minutes. And he’s the best we’ve got; we have to do something so he gets on the ball more. It’s as simple as that. I realised that, especially when we played in Europe, where it’s a more physically demanding game where you have to be more rigorous defensively and sometimes Leo wasn’t involved in the play, he would disappear from the match which would create problems. It is all a learning process, how you get to know the players.

  GB: Leo has felt very comfortable playing down the middle since he was a boy. Why did it take so long for him to be played in his natural position then?

  PG: The questions you ask yourself are: where do I want to go with these players, how do I want to play, what do I need? And you gradually adapt the tactics. It’s difficult for the players to understand because they never put themselves in the coach’s head to have a global vision, they have a biased one, their one. You try to make them understand why such decisions are made and why they benefit everyone, through talks or explaining the reasons for victories or defeats. Some accept them and others don’t. The coach’s big challenge is to make them understand what is good for them and the team, and to make them see that they each have a role.

  Barcelona travelled to London to face Cesc Fàbregas’ Arsenal in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final. Thierry Henry was suffering the consequences of the tactical change and stayed on the bench. The Frenchman never fully accepted the situation and explained to other players years later: ‘One day I asked for a pass, and never started a game again.’ For Henry, his demotion was a mystery.

  Víctor Vázquez, who played with Leo in the lower ranks, explains it differently: ‘When I started to see Leo down the middle, it reminded me of our youth team. One player had to be sacrificed. At that time it was Songo’o, he used to play at centre-forward because of his physical presence, not his quality. Songo’o was a beast, a real powerhouse who would knock people over, like a game of bowling. And when Leo arrived, Songo’o had to move over towards the right wing with Toni Calvo, and they both had to vie for the same spot: Messi was the number ten, he needed the space left by Songo’o to grow.’

  A strange situation occurred during that match in London: Barcelona at their best, as they were in the first half, had a clumsy Ibrahimović trying to force play up front, more distant than ever from the culé style. But he scored two great goals after half-time to put the team in the driving seat, although the game finished in an intriguing 2–2. It was the peak at the club for the Swede who so far had scored 15 league goals and four in Europe, two more than Eto’o at that stage the previous season. Leo was playing behind Ibra and was very quiet. Xavi and Iniesta told him as much bluntly: they needed more from him; he seemed uninterested and did not get involved.

  Leo listened to Xavi and Iniesta. He was aware that not only were they both supreme central midfielders, but they were helping him grow, he needed them. They did not really show their emotions on the pitch, but they had taken on great responsibility and power in the dressing room. Around that time, a kitman from the Argentina national team, who everyone knows as Marito, went to Barcelona to follow Guardiola’s training sessions. Messi introduced him to the players in the dressing room. When ‘the Flea’ was busy sorting out his kit, Marito decided to wind him up for a laugh. He shouted in Messi’s direction: ‘Leo, listen to what they’re saying about you. You only play well because of this guy [Iniesta].’ To which Messi responded amid laughter: ‘They are right.’

  If Xavi and Iniesta were his partners on the pitch, those who gave him the ball in the best situations so they could play his game, Pinto, Dani Alvés and Gabi Milito had become his Praetorian Guard. The latter filled the gap that Silvinho had left. If anyone kicked him in training, Milito would lose his temper: ‘Oi, careful!’

  Leo knew that he had played badly against Arsenal and deserved a telling-off from his team-mates: he had to respond in the return leg.

 
PG: That knockout game against Arsenal was really beautiful. Arsenal play good football, the matches in England have always been spectacular. We played well in the first leg, but they have always caused us problems because they are quick on the counter-attack. They have always caused us problems at our stadium, too. The thing is we had some players who …wow …

  During that season of collective tweaks, Messi had already scored three hat-tricks before his display against Arsenal. As Ramón Besa says, a more childlike Leo went out to play that night. Watch the goal celebrations:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6BHyv6nkAs

  After the second goal, sitting with legs and arms stretched out with a child’s smile, he seems to be saying ‘look at what I’ve done’ rather than ‘I’ve done it’. A subtle gesture follows the fourth goal as he moves his head from one side to the other while running to celebrate. You can almost hear the childish chant coming from him: ‘lalalalala-la, the fourth goal against Arsenal, in the Champions League …’

  6 April 2010. Champions League quarterfinal second leg. Barcelona 4–1 Arsenal

  Barcelona: Valdés; Alvés, Márquez, Milito, Abidal (Maxwell, 53rd minute); Xavi, Busquets; Messi; Pedro (Iniesta, 86th minute), Bojan (Touré, 56th minute) and Keita. Subs not used substitutes: Pinto; Fontàs, Henry and Jeffrén.

  Arsenal: Almunia; Sagna, Vermaelen, Silvestre (Eboué, 63rd minute), Clichy; Denilson, Diaby; Walcott, Nasri, Rosicky (Eduardo, 73rd minute); and Bendtner. Subs not used: Fabiański; Traoré, Mérida, Campbell and Eastmond.

  Goals: 0–1. 18th minute: Bendtner. 1–1. 21st minute: Messi. 2–1. 37th minute. Messi: 3–1. 42nd minute. Messi. 4–1. 88th minute: Messi.

  Marca (Madrid-based newspaper): Outstanding performance by Leo to take Barcelona to the semi-finals. Messi fell from heaven to put things in their place. Bendtner scored the first goal of the game, but that was the beginning of the end for Arsenal, victims of another superhuman game by Leo Messi, scorer of four goals. The keys – Leo is unique, a one-off. He doesn’t play football, he practises another sport unachievable for the rest. He joins a selected group of players who have scored four goals in a Champions League game, alongside Van Basten, Simone Inzaghi, Prso, Van Nistelrooy and Shevchenko.

  Luis Martín, El País: Leo knows that in another team, under another coach, it would be difficult for him to enjoy his football as much as he is right now at the Camp Nou. Because with other players, another coach and at another club, the ball would be with the opposition.

  The British press admitted that there was no longer any doubt about who the best player of that generation was: they had just seen one of his great individual performances in a European competition.

  PG: Tito would always say to me: you can organise your part of the game, put the players in position, but later, the last 15 metres … bloody hell, the ability to dribble, shoot and score a goal … you either have it or you don’t. And Leo has that ease with which he can win you a game in 15 or 20 minutes like he did that day.

  GB: He scored four goals against Arsenal, it was a great day, you can see how happy he is … Does he switch off when he goes into the dressing room or does he continue celebrating?

  PG: No, he is happy, of course: he takes his time, has a relaxing shower, stays longer at dinner. Just like everyone: when I give a press conference after we win, I am happier than when we lose. That is normal.

  GB: I’m writing about his first goal against Albacete and, just like against Arsenal, you see one of these childlike Leo situations: Ronnie – another kid – gives him a piggy-back ride. But he doesn’t do a special celebration at the end of the match, because he thinks it is the first goal of many. I don’t know if you know many players with this mentality, so conscious that the target is much further away.

  PG: These processes that would be almost definitive for anyone else are not a big deal to him. This is what I was saying to you, he thinks: ‘I come here to win the league, to win titles. I win the league, great, but I’ve scored 40 goals, if not, the league matters very little to me.’ He always wants more. And you are lucky enough, as am I, to meet him one day on the path in your professional career. And I’m sure the only thing running through his head now is the World Cup, I mean, everything else is going really well, but he will be prepared for this World Cup, I know it. If he and Argentina arrive in good shape, anything can happen: if he arrives in good shape, consider Argentina favourites.

  After the Arsenal game, Leo kept the ball as a souvenir. It was the trophy from that night. He did not do it for superstitious reasons (there are strikers who say keeping such things brings luck to the home and their careers). Leo neither has nor wants lucky charms: ‘No, I haven’t got any superstition. I just think about my family before playing,’ he said on the UEFA website.

  In the semi-finals, Barcelona faced José Mourinho’s Inter Milan.

  20 April 2010. Champions League semi-final first leg. Inter Milan 3–1 Barcelona

  Inter: Julio César; Maicon (Chivu, 72nd minute), Lucio, Samuel, Zanetti; Motta, Cambiasso; Eto’o, Sneijder, Pandev (Stankovic, 55th minute); and Diego Milito (Balotelli, 75th minute). Subs not used: Orlandoni; Córdoba, Muntari and Materazzi.

  Barcelona: Valdés; Alvés, Piqué, Puyol, Maxwell; Xavi, Busquets; Pedro, Messi, Keita; and Ibrahimović (Abidal, 61st minute). Subs not used: Pinto; Márquez, Bojan, Henry, G. Milito and Touré.

  Goals: 0–1. 18th minute: Pedro, from a Maxwell pull-back. 1–1. 30th minute: Sneijder scores from a Milito assist. 2–1. 48th minute: Maicon, from a Milito pass. 3–1. 61st minute: Milito, header.

  ESPN Deportes: The azulgrana team had yet another of those games where they lacked effectiveness up front, the same as the Saturday game against Espanyol (0–0). Ibrahimović was again in the line-up but the Swede did not receive clear passes but didn’t move around with intelligence so Messi, Xavi or Busquets could find him (…) Guardiola took off a useless Ibrahimović and asked Abidal to move to the left-back position with Maxwell in front of him, and also he moved Messi to the centre to fight it out with the two big centre-backs, Samuel and Lucio.

  Pablo Egea, Marca: For the first time since Guardiola took over the first team, the coach has looked inferior to his rival and has not won the game on the blackboard. On this occasion, Mourinho beat him with a well-researched performance and managed to nullify all the weapons from the last Champions League winners. Also, for the first time, the best coach of last year failed in his substitutions and gave the impression of not being in control of the game.

  The Portuguese coach had spoken about his opponents’ ‘obsession’ with wanting to reach the final at the Santiago Bernabéu. Once again, he was laying down an emotive challenge in this match. It was the knockout game in which Guardiola betrayed himself and the tactical evolution he had decided to apply to the side. He might have lost the connection he had developed with Leo. In the first leg in Milan, Pep once again used Ibrahimović as a number 9, which even went against his intuition.

  Pep, who replaced Ibrahimović early on in the second half, in the only change he made all game, stuck to the idea of using the Swede as the reference point up front in the return leg, but corrected it after wasting an hour. At the Camp Nou, Plan Ibrahimović definitively came to an end.

  GB: When you decide that Ibra is an option, as happened against Arsenal, Leo seems to turn into a tortoise: he withdraws inside himself, he finds it hard to communicate, he puts up a barrier which all of his coaches have encountered, it appears when things don’t go the way his talent desires. How is that situation dealt with?

  PG: Trying to convince him over and over again. And at the right moment, grabbing him and explaining why you’ve thought about doing it that way, the benefits this has, the benefits that has. That year we won the league with 99 points and we didn’t win the Champions League semi-final because Inter probably were better or probably because I didn’t interpret the second leg correctly. These things happen, because we did everything so that he could be comfortable. That season we even played
with a double pivot so that he could play in the hole behind Ibra and the Swede could work his magic down the middle. But decisions are always made thinking about the best for everyone. Am I wrong? Yes, of course. Two hundred times. But I don’t look for excuses. You move on. It is pointless to look for them.

  Ibrahimović, sensing that the rise of a hungry 22-year-old Leo was blocking his own ascendancy, asked Pep many times that season what he should do to help more. In some way, Pep had nothing else to say to him, the team was going in another direction and the coach had to make decisions.

  28 April 2010. Champions League semifinal second leg. Barcelona 1–0 Inter Milan

  Barcelona: Valdés; Piqué, Touré, Gaby Milito (Maxwell, 46th minute); Alvés, Xavi, Busquets (Jeffrén, 63rd minute), Keita; Messi, Ibrahimović (Bojan, 63rd minute) and Pedro. Subs not used: Pinto; Márquez, Henry and Thiago.

  Inter: Julio César; Maicon, Lucio, Samuel, Zanetti; Cambiasso, Motta; Eto’o (Mariga, 85th minute), Sneijder (Muntari, 66th minute), Chivu; and Diego Milito (Córdoba, 81st minute). Subs not used: Toldo, Materazzi, Arnautović and Balotelli.

  Goals: 1–0. 84th minute: Piqué receives the ball from Xavi in the area, turns and scores.

  Marca: So much hard work but the team died just before reaching port. The wonderful story of the last year and a half did not have a good ending, Barcelona has had to wake up from the dream unexpectedly. Pep started with three centre-backs with freedom to go forward and used Alvés in the midfield as another offensive weapon, but not everything came off. Without spaces and with Ibra too static, they lacked ideas. Messi was too far away from the box. He wanted to sort out all the problems of the team by himself, but in football you have to remember that, no matter how good your players are, it is always II vs II.