Lionel Messi Not the Sole Reason Luis Enrique Will Lose the Battle at Barcelona

If there’s one thing we know more than anything about Leo Messi, it’s that this is a player who prefers to do his talking on the pitch, not off it.

So when he appeared on the official FC Barcelona television channel following the team’s performance of the season against Atletico Madrid on Sunday, you realised immediately this was a man with a lot to get off his chest.

And in a carefully orchestrated question-and-answer session (via Sky Sports), he came out all guns blazing to quash varying rumours, whispers and general tittle-tattle which have been seeping out from the Camp Nou.NO, he had not called for the resignation of the coach, Luis Enrique or any member of his staff.

NO, he had not made great demands on the club so he would stay and he’d never had any intentions of moving to Chelsea or Manchester City.

NO, he had not in the past orchestrated the departure of players like Samuel Eto’o, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Bojan Krkic.

NO, he had not had a bad relationship with Pep Guardiola nor should we look for a rivalry between himself and Luis Enrique where none existed.

And finally—and perhaps most tellingly—he added that, while he was accustomed to any number of spurious accusations emanating from a hostile press in Madrid, what really hurt him was that these accusations were coming from Barcelona, and worse, from people who claimed to love the club.

For a man out of his comfort zone, this was brilliant stuff and as clinical as any of his sweetly struck goals. What we saw is a man who can step up to the plate off the pitch as well as on it when called upon to do so.In management terms they don’t come much bigger than Pep Guardiola, and he realised immediately that for the club’s—and therefore his own—success, Messi had to be the leader, the very focus of what happened on the pitch.

“Build your team around him, give him the ball, and never, never substitute him,” was the short but sweet advice offered by Guardiola to the incoming Argentina manager Alejandro Sabella.

By not taking that on board, essentially what Luis Enrique seems to be doing is almost preparing for his new job when he can tell everyone that in a previous life he took on Messi and, lest we forget, also Francesco Totti when he was at Roma.

He would do better to listen to the wise words of a former, and far more successful incumbent in the Camp Nou hot seat, but being the man that he is, of course he won’t and it will cost him dear.



Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2330946-lionel-messi-not-the-sole-reason-luis-enrique-will-lose-the-battle-at-barcelona