Lionel Messi gives insight into coaches and more with his upcoming interview
Lionel Messi has a big interview lined up with Spanish media house, La Sexta. The whole interview is supposed to come out on the 27th of December and it might give us an insight into the player’s thoughts. For now, however, they have released a part of that interview where the Argentine reveals his best managers.
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Messi has worked under a host of managers, some have worked and some have not done quite so well. For the 33-year-old, however, there are two coaches whom he considers the best he ever had at Barcelona. Those two are Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique. The Catalans arguably had the strongest team under these coaches and thus it is not hard to see as to why Messi considers them as the best.
In the interview clipped from La Sexta, the Barcelona captain claims that he was lucky to play under the two masterminds and then goes on to explain why he chose them over the others. Messi says,
"“Pep has something special, he makes you see things in a [different] way, How he prepared the matches, defensively, how to attack, he told you exactly where the game was, how you had to attack to win.”“I was lucky that I had a lot of time with Guardiola and Luis Enrique, the two best. Having them [for so long] made me grow a lot in football and in the tactical wisdom that they taught me.”Source Goal"
It is true that the Argentine enjoyed his best seasons under the Spanish coaches. The coaches that came after Enrique could not emulate the same performance and thus could not live up to the expectations of the club. Under Guardiola, Barcelona were unstoppable and they created a formidable style of football that conquered the entirety of Europe.
Luis Enrique, although not as successful as Guardiola, managed to provide Barcelona with their last UEFA Champions League trophy. Ernesto Valverde and Quique Setien were unable to provide much and will be forgotten soon. Ronald Koeman has also suffered from an embarrassing start to the season and if he is unable to turn the season around, his job could be under a lot of pressure.
Presidential candidate, Victor Font, as well as Messi, have publicly admitted their wishes to get Xavi Hernandez as the next coach for Barcelona, and thus if Koeman does not make a significant upgrade to his tactics and performance, he may very well be on his way out of Barcelona.
Who is your all-time favourite Barca coach?