49erssports.com - Lionel Messi had a wonderful time with one of the genius managers in modern football, Josep Guardiola when he was with Barcelona. As long as Messi was under his care, he realized that Pep was destroying football.
At that time, Messi was still 21 years old when Pep underwent a career as a senior team manager for the first time. Pep was promoted to become manager of the Barcelona senior team in the 2008/2009 season to replace Frank Rijkaard.
In the first year, Pep brought Barcelona to be terrible. A mix of Pep's tactical acumen combined with Messi's super talent, Barcelona dominated.
As a result, Barcelona won the first treble winners in the club's history. Since then, Messi believes that Pep has completely ruined football.
Create Multiple Failures
Messi said that Pep was too genius when handling a team. What Pep does looks easy and can be imitated by many other coaches.
But because of that thought, many managers then fail. Most of them failed because they couldn't imitate what Pep had done for Barcelona.
"Guardiola created a lot of damage to football because he made a lot of people believe his football philosophy is easy to imitate," he told Movistar.
"I and we all see that there are many 'Guardiola' who fail. You know that only we can do it,” he continued.
Special Perspective
According to the player who made 219 appearances during his three years under Pep's care, Messi thinks his coach has a special perspective.
Pep seems to see one incident uniquely and differently from others. This perspective helps him to find the right solution.
“Everything that has been prepared, always materializes. He is special in the way he sees things, prepares for games and communicates," Messi said.
Best Coach
Since his debut at that time, Pep has continued to maintain his genius status when holding Manchester City in the 2022/2023 season. During this period, Pep has collected 33 team trophies with three different teams.
"Pep is the best coach I have," said Messi.