The player-coach duo of Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola were arguably one of the most effective partnerships in world football. During their time together at Barcelona, Messi and Guardiola helped the Camp Nou outfit to 14 titles that included three La Liga titles and two UEFA Champions League trophies.
The Spaniard has been successful wherever he has gone but it was his four-year stint (2008 and 2012) as the head coach at Barca, that served to define him as a coach. Since then Guardiola has gone on to manage Bayern Munich (2013 to 2016) and Manchester City from 2016 onwards. On the other hand, Messi shockingly left his boyhood club this past summer as Camp Nou executives could not renew his contract despite the Argentine international agreeing to a 50 percent wage cut. Messi currently plies his trade for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG).
Despite that, the Spanish coach is still full of admiration for the Argentine legend and has compared him to Michael Jordan.
Speaking on a podcast for an Argentine newspaper, Guardiola had nothing but kind words for Messi and said that it was ‘impossible’ to win many accolades without the generational player.
“What does Messi mean? Everything, everything, Messi is like Michael Jordan,” Barca Universal quoted Guardiola from that podcast.
“It’s like when Phil Jackson could feel that feeling that everything was flowing and there were no problems. I owe him a good bottle of wine to thank him for the contracts he allowed me to sign,” he added.
He also touched upon the amazing squad of players he had at his disposal during his time at Barca.
“We had an amazing group of players who helped him when we were together at Barcelona in those four years. There were a lot of stars at the right time and the right age for everyone, with Xavi, Carles Puyol and Andres Iniesta too,” the 51-year-old explained.
He also believes that without the Argentinian, the Blaugrana would not have scaled the heights it did during his tenure at the club.
“There was unique chemistry. Without Messi, we would still have won. But, would we have won so much? No, impossible,” he concluded.
In between the Messi-transfer saga, a reunification between Guardiola and Messi was looking unavoidable, but Messi signed with Ligue 1 giants and his trajectory hasn’t been the same since. The star striker currently has just seven goals and twelve assists in 25 games at PSG, a far cry from his 30 plus goals in each of his last 13 campaigns at Barca.
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