Discussing Strategies to Stop Messi

How do you stop Messi?

How will you stop him?

Can you do anything to stop him?

What's it like playing against him?

Is he the best you've ever played?

And this is the guy I, I forget the name.

Some,

some player that they had there. Uh, Messi.

This,

this was the guy.

All right. The big question is, how do you stop Messi?

That's what everyone wants to know.

Everyone's wanted to know it for years, and still haven't really managed it.

Well, I was in a team that tried it a couple of times

and it didn't, didn't come

off. So-

All right

... other than, other than GBH, I don't know at the moment. But he's,

um...

Listen, um, he'd been, uh, in the conversation

when you're talking about the best

players to ever play football. So he's someone I think there's no

individual that

can deal with him. It's a team effort.

You've gotta have two and three players around to stop him.

Stop him getting the ball, put people around him,

stop the ball coming into him,

the... And then when he gets the ball, then you've gotta have people that are on

him.

I, I never say Messi is the special one in here because

everything he does,

he does all the time. When Messi has the ball, one on one,

you are dead. God of football is impossible to stop.

How do you deal with a player like Messi?

It's a good question. Uh,

uh, we are talking about the best player in

the world.

Messi has the capacity to solve the situation and, uh,

to, to create a chance when you, you are not seeing the

chance to, to score.

It's very, very

difficult

to face him because he's a player that, no matter how much you study him, you will

never understand the quality he has and the difference he can

make.

At certain moments you think he's going to do one thing, he pulls another thing out

of his bag and does something you wouldn't imagine he would do.

For me,

he's the greatest player in history, the greatest player I've ever seen play.

We never really controlled Messi, but many people have said that anyway.

Having a footballer like

Lionel, who is in an extraordinary moment, it is clear that there is no

strategy that can control something that we all want to control and it is

impossible because it is a natural thing that he has.

But I think that the majority of coaches

do not know how.

When, when we play him,

you notice, like, what a player he is.

There's not many c- situations where you come off the,

the pitch and you go,

we talk like children, like, "Damn." I know, it- it's not,

we're not in awe of him,

but you just gotta be honest.

Yeah, he's, uh, he's-

'Cause, 'cause you just see the guy wandering

round, totally oblivious to the

game sometimes, and then all of a sudden, bang, just...

And he's, and he's creating something or he's scoring.

You know, he-- Last year he put one past me.

He came across the box and he, and he, like,

dubbed it with the outside of his foot

kind of here, but he knew exactly what was going on.

Who was tougher to play against?

I think it has to be Messi. Obviously, people talk about the Ronaldo

comparison more because I played against him more.

But no, I think to mark Messi was, you know, on his day, it w-

it w- he was too good for me.

How will you stop him?

I don't know. We'll see.

I think Messi is the best player in the world.

I think he deserves it as long as he plays.

Um, so the Ballon d'Or is not something I, I'm definitely thinking of.

So I think he's still the best player in the world.

Doesn't matter if he's not in the Champions League final or he's or not.

Yeah, in his moments he's unstoppable, obviously.

We cannot, we couldn't defend the free kick.

What a strike. I knew before that Lionel, Lionel is a world-class

player, and now I saw it again.

I'm not too surprised, to be honest. Lionel is for me the best.

The fight for Messi's shirt. That you ask for a shirt from your

opponent

during halftime. Whoever it is. If you have the best player in the

world

against

you, well, I understand that

you ask for a shirt, but

not

during halftime.

The hardest player you've come up against?

I think Messi again.

Because last year we, we played against him in Champion League.

He was more than good.

Perfect. Massive.

I think. Yeah, because when I was coming close to him, I was looking,

"Oh, this

guy, I don't want to put the ball on him."

Because my father, my brother, my

family, they would look at me, they would, "Yeah, even him." And me, when I was

coming close, I said, "No, no."

I think Messi when, uh, we played against Barcelona at Wembley.

He was very, very special that day.

This is prob- possibly one of the most embarrassing

nights of my life.

The thing about him is that he doesn't even,

doesn't even come near you.

So you actually, me and Vidić stood on the halfway line once

at Wembley and looked

at each other and just went.

And we were losing, like, and we were standing there thinking,

"I've not even

touched anyone. I've not even got anywhere."

If you're a defender in a game, you

wanna get near people or at least get the ball.

We, we didn't have the ball, and I didn't get to put my hands on no one

to, to

rough up or anything like that. And the problem is, is

when you did get close to

him, he was that small and quick, he was going underneath.

So I was like, I was trying-

To slip through.

Normally, normally you go out and you hit someone in the chest.

Yeah.

And he was just going underneath me.

And I was thinking, "This guy, he's a magician."

He's the best player I've played against.

I have to say that he is something special, really.

The other one

is

also world-class, but Messi, when he came at you, it was difficult.

Let's say that Messi

makes 10 runs in 10 minutes and he

destroys

you because he may be turning many times and he is still sweating, he is starting

to sweat and you realize how... And then he gives you another one.

It's that.

Then he

always carries the ball, carries the ball.

The difficulty with him is not, he's not always in the game, you know?

But when he's in it, he's really dangerous.

His team gets in on the run with the ball, and once he's on the run with the

ball, uh, he's unstoppable. He's the only player

who, uh, can change direction at such a pace and,

uh, be

a threat. For me, he's the best player in the world,

and by a, by a

distance.

As a goalkeeper, what is it like when he's coming towards you

and you know he can

do virtually anything?

Yeah, yeah. Uh, the situation has to, uh, try to

anticipate to what, what, uh, he's gonna do.

But it's, it's so difficult because he can do

whatever he want in, at

any moment and, uh, it's difficult to stop this,

this kind of players.

Is he probably the best you've ever faced?

As a player, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

Not having the state he is in now in these last, I don't know,

four or five months.

He can't be stopped. There is no defensive system.

He's the best player of all time. We can put him with Pele, but I never

saw a boy like him, and I believe we won't see another for a

long time.

The only way you can deal with him is by keeping the ball from him as much as

possible. I don't have another way of dealing with

such a talent.

There is no other way.

I would say defending Messi one-on-one, it's, um,

not possible.

It's not important how you prepare the game if you haven't from Messi.

If Messi won, it's sure 3-0 for, for the, the

team that involve Messi.

But what is it like being an opponent?

Well, you know, it's being on the other side, I, I,

he's an

attacking player and I'm an attacking player, so I don't have to defend him.

Messi has things that you never know.

You know, he can change a game in, in a second.

Sometimes you, if you look at him on the pitch,

it's like he's outside of the

game.

Remote. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like he's not, you know, paying attention of anything.

But in any second he can score, so that's why when you have the

opportunity

on your side, if you have a chance, try to score as, as many goals as

you can because you never know what's gonna happen if he wakes up.

As players, you wanna play against the, the best players in the world and, and

Messi is certainly that. Yeah, he's, he's a fantastic player and I'm sure,

uh, we'll do our best to, to stop him.

What's it like being out on the pitch with him one-to-one?

Yeah, these are the games, you know, that you wanna be involved in.

You know, um, you know, you dream of playing in games like this,

and especially

against players like Messi. So yeah, he was, um, you know, he

was unbelievable in

the game and, um, he was lucky they didn't get a couple of more

goals.

But, um, yeah, we all know the, the, the, the quality of player that he is and, you

know, he's just, uh, sometimes just magic to watch.

Apart from Messi

who

is an alien