Again, and again, words of acclamation keep falling on Leo Messi’s shoulders as legendary defender Carles Puyol gets added to the long list of footballing greats who were left so amazed by the Barcelona forward’s class that they ended up describing Messi as the best on the planet.
Speaking to a Barcelona based newspaper La Vanguardia, the defender disclosed the confidence splintering effect Messi can have on a defender. The former Barcelona leader revealed how teammate Lionel Messi schooled him in a training session and it left him feeling so humiliated he asked for it to be stopped.
The incident took place during the Pep Guardiola era when he was commissioned to stop Leo:
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“I told myself: ‘I’m going to see if I can stop him’. It was humiliating.”
“Pep told me: ‘Carles, don’t injure him’. ‘If you don’t want anything to happen, stop the session’, I told him. I tried everything but he always got past me at his own pace”.
Puyol has one of the best footballing CV’s in the modern game after winning six Spanish titles and three Champions Leagues with Barcelona as well as two Euro Cups and a World Cup with Spain and the 37-year-old believes Messi is the best player on the planet.
“He’s head and shoulders above anyone I’ve seen” the defender added.
Few days back, Manchester United great Paul Scholes, in his column for ‘The Independent’ wrote that he isn’t ashamed to admit that in the games against Barcelona he spent a lot of time just hoping Messi would take up positions as far away from his as possible and described the Barcelona wizard as a ‘phenomenon’.
