Atletico Madrid’s Jan Oblak pays tribute to Lionel Messi

(L-R) Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona, Jan Oblak of Atletico Madrid, Sergi Roberto of FC Barcelona, Ivan Rakitic of FC Barcelona. (Photo by Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty Images)
(L-R) Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona, Jan Oblak of Atletico Madrid, Sergi Roberto of FC Barcelona, Ivan Rakitic of FC Barcelona. (Photo by Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty Images)

Atletico Madrid’s goalkeeper talks about 644 goals by Lionel Messi.

After Lionel Messi broke Pele’s legendary one club scoring record, many teammates, ex-teammates, and even rivals congratulated the player. Pele himself shared a heartfelt post in which he praised Messi’s loyalty to Barcelona and congratulated him on breaking the record. The Argentine is every goalkeeper’s worst nightmare but even arch-rival, Jan Oblak, praised his accomplishment and hailed him as the greatest ever.

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The 33-year-old has been terrorizing the La Liga ever since his debut in 2004. No defender wants to face and goalkeepers know that the magician can send the ball into the net in a split second. Atletico Madrid’s keeper, Jan Oblak, knows this better than most. Having faced him multiple times, the keeper knows how hard it is to face off against the best player in the world.

In an interview with Sky Sports, Oblak congratulated the player and gave some insight as to why it is so difficult to stop him. He said in the interview,

"“He watches my legs, If I make one step, he will see it and shoot to the other side. This is why he is the best. This is why he is so difficult. He does not show it but he is always looking. He is always watching you. His eyes are on the ball but he sees you.”“Sometimes you do not see him. Maybe you are thinking it is not dangerous. And then he scores. This happened to us last season. You need to be 100 percent concentrated. He is still the best player in the world.”Source Goal"

The Madrid side keeper in good humor joked about the number of times the number 10 has scored past him, “Too many times!”, he claims. He continued to pour praises on the six-time Ballon d’Or winner and wished him the very best in the future.

644 is already an insane amount of goals but Oblak reckons that Messi can score a lot more goals in the future. His numbers show us truly how much he has achieved and the keeper firmly believes that this was only possible because he is the best in the world. The Slovenian’s only wish is that the Argentine does not score past him.