Barcelona need to find a place for Lionel Messi’s statue, declares Pep Guardiola
Former Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola has declared that Barcelona needs to find a place to build “legend” Lionel Messi’s statue after the Argentine put in a sublime performance in Barcelona’s 5-1 win over Real Valladolid. Messi also scored the 50th free-kick of his career during the rout.
Lionel Messi was phenomenal during Barcelona’s gigantic win over Real Valladolid. The 32 year old scored a surreal free-kick, provided stellar assists to Arturo Vidal and Luis Suarez rounding off a brilliant display. Messi has scored a record 423 goals in La Liga and overtook Cristiano Ronaldo for the number of goals scored at club level. The Argentina international has now scored 608 goals in 695 games compared to Ronaldo’s 607 goals in 815 club games. These majestic records has prompted Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola heap praise on Messi. As reported by the Express, Guardiola thinks that Messi is one of the top three players in Barca’s history.
“What needs to be prepared is the space for the statue, the way to pay tribute to him like Kubala or Johan , and I've no doubt they'll find it. Stars need to run like anyone else, if not the team can't cope, you need to convince them to run. Sometimes, you say to them 'I won't make you run 40 metres like the 20-year-old athlete in the team, but give me a reason not to run. If someone doesn't run, but scores three goals every game I can buy that, but nobody scores three goals a game, only Messi comes close,” said Guardiola to the Express.
The former Bayern Munich boss further admitted that at this age Messi needs to take care of his fitness and no one expects him to run like he used to run at the age of 20. However, Guardiola awent on to say that if Messi ran like he used to during Guardiola’s tenure, the Argentine would have frequent injuries.
“Right now, you need to ask Messi to make short bursts of effort. He can't run for the sake of running, no way. If Leo ran like he ran in his first season with me he'd be injured every three months. Managing legends of 30 and above is the hardest thing for a coach. There are great coaches who have won nothing because they didn't have Messi.
“I was lucky enough to have him, and Xavi and Iniesta and Dani Alves and Pique. And what's more, at the perfect age. There is not one player who doesn't think about defending at all, but you have to adapt to the qualities of your players. When Barcelona played better it was with Laudrup at false nine and then Messi,” concluded the 48 year old coach.
0
0
0
0
0
0
Comments
Sign up or log in to your account to leave comments and reactions
0 Comments