It's like he is actively making sure that we have to make it harder on ourselves to score than any other team in the world.
Whenever we are moving forward with momentum, he insists on dropping deep instead of moving with the flow and searching for spaces when the opposition is unbalanced. This is how every other team in the world scores goals. Attacking with momentum. This is how any other offensive midfield or winger finds his moments of incursion. When the attacking is flowing and the opponent is unsettled.
But no.
Messi insists on looking for a way through only when the entire other team has settled into a balanced defense. Only when the difficulty is at the absolute max can we attack.
Yes he's the only one creating against a bus but that's because we play against a bus. Coutinho and Griezmann come from teams that attack with gusts of collective force. They're used to either going for it or not. As is literally any team in the world.
Attacking against a bus is an entire skillset of its own. There are very different demands for decision making. Your instinct of whether to attack or not is thrown off.
Watch how we play when Messi is not on the field. Less sophisticated, sure, but we transition quicker, find better spaces for eachother and attack with much more momentum. The thing is, if we do that, we don't need a Messi to find an impossible pass. Because that's what every other team does and none of them have Messi.
