Leo Messi is a special player. It was a special one for FC Barcelona during all the almost 20 years he was at the club. A brilliant and decisive player … and sometimes indomitable, as he discovers RMC Sport in his documentary about the Argentine. In it he recounts unknown episodes in his time at the Barça club. Episodes that portray him as “a difficult person to deal with”, as described by Alexandre Julliard, author of the book Insurmountable Messi: “For years at Barcelona Messi was a difficult person to deal with. Because he is someone very withdrawn, he had a communication problem and did not go head-on. When something bothered him, it passed through another person who was going to be his messenger, or through attitudes of bad humor “.
Julliard has also revealed Pep Guardiola’s infinite patience with the Argentine star … and also his left hand. He reveals that Guardiola even had to go to Messi’s house to talk to him: “If one day he was either a substitute or was substituted, the next day he didn’t want to go to training. Then Pep Guardiola said: ‘I’m going to lose it, what am I doing? Well, I’m taking the car, I’m going to his house and I’m going to look for him. ‘ Which seems crazy today. ” Insurmountable Messi He talks about the left hand of the now City coach and transfers some of the episodes that the Catalan coach who lived with the Ballon d’Or six times told him: “It was like a cry for help. In that you have to go and communicate with him, reassure him and make sure you put him back on the right track.”
Guardiola showed how to treat Messi like nobody else. In the same documentary it has transpired the moment when Barcelona gave in to let him go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, despite the fact that his participation left him out of the team during the preseason. Ignasi Oliva, director of the Catalan radio station Arenys, told it in the same documentary: “Messi was committed to reaching the Olympic Games. This generated tensions in the club, since Barcelona was going to start playing the Champions League. Pep Guardiola asked him: ‘Leo, do you want to go to the Games? Messi answered yes before seeing the coach tell him: ‘So go to the Games and when you come back I want you on top’ “.
