DAZN expert Per Mertesacker has revealed how the German national team has managed to contain the circles of superstar Lionel Messi over the years before FC Barcelona’s Champions League return match at FC Liverpool (9pm live on DAZN). National coach Joachim Löw has often used the term “coach”.
“When Messi has the ball, it’s fantastic to look at and hard to stop,” enthused Mertesacker, who had to play Messis Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final with the DFB team. “You must double it, triple it and accompany it permanently, block its way to the gate.”
Löw used the word “accompany” very often before the 2014 World Cup final: “Never tackle, never go down. We’ve heard that over and over again.” If one starts to slide against Messi, he is so fast that one can hardly get back into the play. “You have to try to keep Messi away from the goal and block with multiple players to be as close as possible.” “He’s too nimble, too fast, too intense with the ball.”
The problem: Messi would immediately recognize the space created by doubling and use others. That’s why it wasn’t an alternative for him as a central defender to let Messi pull him out of the chain: “You need good communication between the lines. Then I have to say to the six, “I’m sorry, now you have two opponents.” You can’t follow Messi into midfield, otherwise another player can jump into the room.
The fact that Mertesacker was so often successful with the German national team against Argentina – among other things at the World Cup finals in 2006 and 2010 – is also due to the fact that the Argentine national team lacked the structure that Barca has. “Argentina never managed to combine the strengths of defence and attack,” explained Mertesacker. “The storm did its thing, the defense did its thing. We’ve always made good use of that.”
Argentina had “not had the feeling that Messi had full control”. That’s also why he missed the big litter with the national team: “He got the personal trophy for the best player, not the one for the best team. That’s the only thing you could hold against him.”
