Yannick03
New member
On December 5th, Balague will release his book of Messi. An extraction :
Pep Guardiola discovered one of Leo’s pressure points early on in his tenure. As he admitted to Martin Souto, Messi got annoyed because he was replaced in the 81st minute by Pedro. With the match already wrapped up with an emphatic 4–0 lead, Pep wanted to give him a rest in preparation for the Real Madrid match seven days later. Thierry Henry had scored a hat-trick but Leo was quiet. According to Catalan radio station RAC1, 'the Flea' turned up at the training ground the following day but did not get changed and was clearly mad about the match and substitution.
Messi gets angry when he is replaced and also when he is not given the ball when he thinks he should get it. But, as Estiarte once said to Leo, other footballers simply do not see the game as he does: "I used to be like you. I would see it clearly, but the thing is it is not that obvious to the others. They aren’t as good as you."
Orion
"Look, I also get annoyed when they don’t pass it to me, if I see an opening and I don’t get the ball," explains Gustavo Oberman, the Argentine international who won the Under-20 World Cup alongside Messi. "Maybe his anger is more noticeable with so many cameras on him. But it is something that every player does, from the best in the world to the village boys having a kickabout with friends. I do it because I think the best option is down my side and there are times when I don’t pass because I can’t see the other openings. It isn’t out of selfishness or personal ambition, because he provides many assists, too, he doesn’t just score."
That was the same Leo whom Pep discovered to be competitive to the extreme, even in friendlies. Diego Milito tells of how Messi used to shout: "Pass to me, I’ll sort it out," if his team was losing in a kickabout in training. He also followed football codes that he had learned in Argentina: in the book 'When We Never Lost' Juan Villoro tells of a training session in which Sergio Busquets went hard in on the ball and gashed Messi’s leg.
The session continued and in the dressing room the midfielder went to apologise to him. "The victim answered in a measured voice," Villoro continues, "pointing to the wound: 'it says Sergio Busquets here'." Leo was not going to forget that; he owed him one. "Days later, the incident apparently forgotten, he tackled Busquets very hard and smiled with almost childish glee: it had been payback time."
Villoro explains that in a game against Espanyol, the city rivals, at their stadium in Cornella, he celebrated the 5–1 victory by patrolling the wing nearest to the benches, occasionally throwing sidelong glances at the rival coach, fellow Argentinian Mauricio Pochettino. And every now and then if a winger or forward, those around him, didn’t pass him the ball, he would also show his disgust. Guardiola understood that those were two faces of the same coin. And he was learning how to handle it.
Since starting his career in the game, Pep has always known there are footballers who have to be treated differently. He saw it in the Barcelona dressing room as a player with Hristo Stoichkov and Romario. When he started to think as a coach, he reflected on how such supposed favouritism could be applied without affecting the group...
It seems like Balague is looking for a sensational story, can't believe this is true...
Pep Guardiola discovered one of Leo’s pressure points early on in his tenure. As he admitted to Martin Souto, Messi got annoyed because he was replaced in the 81st minute by Pedro. With the match already wrapped up with an emphatic 4–0 lead, Pep wanted to give him a rest in preparation for the Real Madrid match seven days later. Thierry Henry had scored a hat-trick but Leo was quiet. According to Catalan radio station RAC1, 'the Flea' turned up at the training ground the following day but did not get changed and was clearly mad about the match and substitution.
Messi gets angry when he is replaced and also when he is not given the ball when he thinks he should get it. But, as Estiarte once said to Leo, other footballers simply do not see the game as he does: "I used to be like you. I would see it clearly, but the thing is it is not that obvious to the others. They aren’t as good as you."
Orion
"Look, I also get annoyed when they don’t pass it to me, if I see an opening and I don’t get the ball," explains Gustavo Oberman, the Argentine international who won the Under-20 World Cup alongside Messi. "Maybe his anger is more noticeable with so many cameras on him. But it is something that every player does, from the best in the world to the village boys having a kickabout with friends. I do it because I think the best option is down my side and there are times when I don’t pass because I can’t see the other openings. It isn’t out of selfishness or personal ambition, because he provides many assists, too, he doesn’t just score."
That was the same Leo whom Pep discovered to be competitive to the extreme, even in friendlies. Diego Milito tells of how Messi used to shout: "Pass to me, I’ll sort it out," if his team was losing in a kickabout in training. He also followed football codes that he had learned in Argentina: in the book 'When We Never Lost' Juan Villoro tells of a training session in which Sergio Busquets went hard in on the ball and gashed Messi’s leg.
The session continued and in the dressing room the midfielder went to apologise to him. "The victim answered in a measured voice," Villoro continues, "pointing to the wound: 'it says Sergio Busquets here'." Leo was not going to forget that; he owed him one. "Days later, the incident apparently forgotten, he tackled Busquets very hard and smiled with almost childish glee: it had been payback time."
Villoro explains that in a game against Espanyol, the city rivals, at their stadium in Cornella, he celebrated the 5–1 victory by patrolling the wing nearest to the benches, occasionally throwing sidelong glances at the rival coach, fellow Argentinian Mauricio Pochettino. And every now and then if a winger or forward, those around him, didn’t pass him the ball, he would also show his disgust. Guardiola understood that those were two faces of the same coin. And he was learning how to handle it.
Since starting his career in the game, Pep has always known there are footballers who have to be treated differently. He saw it in the Barcelona dressing room as a player with Hristo Stoichkov and Romario. When he started to think as a coach, he reflected on how such supposed favouritism could be applied without affecting the group...
It seems like Balague is looking for a sensational story, can't believe this is true...
