Messi (76 page)

Mourinho had tried with all the weapons in his arsenal, and his efforts had left a mark. He managed to make sure that in future
clásicos
you had to keep an eye on what was going on away from the game. The Spanish Supercup match the following summer (the one in which Mourinho’s finger ended up in Tito Vilanova’s eye) was not a peaceful one for Leo. After drawing 2–2 in the away leg, recently back from holiday and against a Madrid side that was ready to win their first trophy of the season, Barcelona had to wait until the final minutes of the second leg at the Camp Nou to take the title.

Near the end of the game, Messi spat close to the Madrid bench and Mourinho raised his finger to his nose suggesting that Leo was dirty. The clincher to make it 3–2 arrived two minutes from the end: a goal from the Argentinian, his second of the day. After scoring it he made a gesture to the Madrid bench, opening and closing his left hand, seemingly inviting them to continue protesting, to continue talking. Shortly after, he clashed strongly with Fabio Coentrao who had not been aware of ‘the Flea’s’ presence. What the cameras had not seen were the little kicks that Messi got and hardly anyone saw, on the ankle, from behind, constantly, the ones that hurt.

‘He turns up in his flip-flops and scores three goals against Madrid,’ said Xavi after the game.

In the league five months later, Pepe premeditatedly trod on his hand and the Portuguese defender ended up apologising for his actions on the Real Madrid website. He said it had been an involuntary gesture. There were more personal confrontations in the following years, while Mourinho was on the Real bench. It was becoming harder to enjoy the
clásicos
; they had stopped being entertaining games, becoming instead pitched battles and smear campaigns. The constant appearances of Leo, who drew level with Alfredo Di Stéfano on goals scored in matches between the two sides, confirmed that he was a player for the big occasion, but in the last
clásicos
it was becoming clear that Mourinho had become the first to find the antidote to their game, opening the way for others (Chelsea, Bayern Munich) to cast doubt in the following months upon the dominance of their team.

Mourinho, with his constant doubts over the legitimacy of the
blaugranas
’ triumphs, contributed something else as well: people became tired of seeing Barcelona win. That’s certainly how Leo understands it as he explained in an interview with Martín Souto of TyC.

8. THE SECOND CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL AGAINST MANCHESTER UNITED, 2011

Picture the scene: Barcelona fly from Valencia where the team had faced Levante and won the league title. In the middle of the flight there’s a party, some players are standing up, others applauding from their seats, there are songs. ‘Slow down, slow down, slow down … we took their arses down’, referring to Real Madrid, of course. And an announcement comes over the tannoy: ‘This is your captain speaking. One of the emergency doors has been activated. Please, we are in the critical phase of the flight. I know that you are all very happy, but try to contain it for a moment.’ Without realising it, Leo had activated it during the celebration. With a cheeky smirk, he looked behind him, just in case someone had seen him do it. The laughter continued until they reached Ciudad Condal.

It had been a very tough league. The pressure from Madrid was difficult to come to terms with. They had made it uncomfortable for Messi on the pitch, too. Mourinho had found a formula to prevent his diagonal runs and link-up play: a midfielder was waiting for him
at the start of each piece of play, aggressive in the tackle and with the intention of not letting him get out of second gear. On top of that, the
merengues
were packing the midfield. And ultimately they even raised the defensive line to reduce the space. The model for stopping Barcelona had been put in place.

But few teams had sufficient numbers of intelligent and capable players who could cause damage on the counter like Real Madrid. Before the Champions League final, Messi had scored 52 goals and provided 24 assists in all competitions. ‘How do you stop this guy?’ sports newspaper
Marca
asked.

The answer was not clear for the majority of teams. Listen to Atlético de Madrid left-back Mariano Pernía, who told a funny story on the TyC Sports programme
Extra Time
during a televised barbecue with other Argentinian players: ‘The worst thing about Messi, the worst … we were losing 3 or 4–1, at the Calderón, and he stopped in the middle of the pitch. He just stopped, completely motionless. Literally. He froze! And I was seven or eight metres away, and I say: “Oh shit …” Well, I go over there … more through obligation than anything else … And … I don’t know what he did to me, I just don’t know!’ Leo had waited for Pernía to arrive and made as if to move, his feet planted firmly on the ground. And then he was off. The defender was left behind. ‘I got home and my missus says to me: “What did he do to you?” And I say: “How do I know!? You tell me. You saw it on TV!” I swear I don’t know. I went to close him down as he was about to cut in; but he didn’t cut in, I don’t know what he did.’

To help him prevent defenders overpowering him, Leo built his muscles up. José María Cuartetas noticed the physical change after the 2010 World Cup: ‘He went to Argentina and when he came back, the three of us who were working [in the restaurant] that day, said: “he has done something, he has spent the summer in the gym.” You could see he was more muscular. Now his legs are more developed, more pronounced, firmer arms, a stronger chest … and we spoke about it with his father, but he told us he hadn’t done anything, just trained as normal. You see him now, they barge into him and he handles it.’

So how do you defend against him then? ‘Even if you know the move he is going to do, he’ll dummy you so quickly and burst with
such explosiveness that you lose him,’ says Cesc, who marked him while at Arsenal and hundreds of times in training. ‘It’s like the game in front of a mirror with a person behind who moves to one side and you have to follow him. You never have time to do what he does.’

‘Messi combines his perfect touch with an incredible agility and rapid acceleration,’ explains coach Henk ten Cate. ‘He often changes position over the first couple of yards. As a defender, you lose your courage. The beautiful thing is that he does all of that right on the edge of the box. Therefore, practically every action by Messi creates danger from the moment he receives possession.’

Football is an action-reaction sport and teams therefore gradually changed their strategies as Leo changed his. When he played as a winger, the full-back would take care of him. On top of that, as Pep said at a press conference in Buenos Aires: ‘He had the touchline, which is the best defender around.’

‘In the Copa del Rey match when they knocked us out, he played mainly down the right,’ explains Fernando Navarro, ex-Barcelona and now at Sevilla. ‘You always try to show him outside as he is left-footed, that’s less dangerous. In the second half, I tried to send him outside but he took a shot which hit the post. And my keeper, Andrés Palop, shouted at me: “show him inside, Fernando.” In the next piece of play he ran at me again, went inside and hit the post again. And I say to Palop: “Andrés, don’t tell me where to go because he will still dribble past me!”’

‘I faced him many times, he wore number thirty for the first few, I remember because I have the shirt safe at home,’ explains the Argentinian former Zaragoza player Leonardo Ponzio in
El Gráfico
. ‘You went to defend against him knowing what he could do to you. As for precautions. At the Camp Nou you couldn’t take any, because the pitch is so big … But at our stadium, if you gather around him and mark him with two men, and are always close to him, you could keep him under wraps a bit more.’

In his magnificent matches still as a winger, nobody knew how to stop him apart from committing fouls: he would easily get past his man in one on ones, so defensive midfielders started to collaborate. ‘Even if you think you know what he is going to do, he is so quick and his timing so good that he becomes almost infallible,’ admits
Fernando Navarro. ‘He waits for the opportune moment to change direction. How many times has he scored that goal when he starts on the right, and drives inside, further inside, and further inside, almost ending up on the opposite wing and shoots into the far corner? Many times. And it’s still hard to stop him.’

‘When he was close to me,’ remembers Ponzio, ‘I wouldn’t say to him: “Don’t go past me any more, we are both from Newell’s.” And if they were winning 4–0, I would say: “Take it down a gear, that’s enough.” He would listen to me, but never took the suggestion on board.’

When he went on his diagonal runs, at the end of the Rijkaard era and in Guardiola’s first year, the tactical problem was his own team-mates: he would go past opponents at such speed that his own side would hinder him en route to the goal. His team-mates had to learn how to make space for him, and over time the obvious solution was for the number 9, who was in the space that Leo needed, to disappear.

When he finally moved into the middle, the difficulty the opposition had was deciding who would mark him, who would push out to him when he had the ball: the centre-backs preferred to wait for him on the edge of the area but he had already started his run by then, and, with his skill, it was easier for him to get past them: as for the central midfielder, he would be overwhelmed by the presence of more Barcelona players than his own team-mates.

‘Speaking about defensive tactics against Messi at his best is of little use,’ says ex-Villarreal coach Juan Carlos Garrido. ‘They have all been tried out: he has been man-marked, deep defences, a high line … no tactic has worked against Messi at his best.’

‘He is too good to be man-marked,’ says Gio van Bronckhorst. ‘He always finds an escape route in the one on one.’ His compatriot Mark Van Bommel, who shared the dressing room with Messi in the 2005−06 season, has a solution: ‘Sometimes, when he gets too cocky, I tackle him fiercely. The little brat likes to nutmeg you. He did it to me twice on one occasion, so I went in on him with a full-blooded tackle. Rijkaard was furious. We can’t do that stuff in training. But you can in a match!’ Paolo Montero, Uruguay international and ex-Juventus, agrees: ‘The only way is the old-school one: kicking him off the park, it’s the only way I can see.’

Teams were aware that they could not just mark Messi but had to defend against Barcelona as a whole. They started bunching up down the middle and leaving the wings free for Guardiola’s outfit: they could only do damage from there with balls into the box, but the
blaugranas
did not have a striker capable of winning aerial battles.

So, in May 2011, Manchester United had a choice of defensive strategies.

For that final at Wembley, Barcelona were able to count on Éric Abidal, who had played a few minutes of the semi-final against Real Madrid in one of the most emotional moments of the season. The French player had had an operation on a liver tumour in March. He started against Manchester United.

Guardiola asked the team to be themselves, to be more Barcelona than ever, faithful to the style.