Read 6 minutesNew Jersey19 July 2026 06:30 AM IST
Years later, it’s a regret for veteran Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson. He couldn’t stop Lionel Messi Not in the Champions League final, not in 2009 or even in 2011. “You want centre-backs who are ready to drop right over Messi and not worry about what’s going on behind them,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “He’s less of a threat than in the middle. The next time we play Barcelona in the Champions League final, I won’t let him bully us again,” he wrote.
The next time has not come. But he’s not the only manager or defender whose best-laid plans have been thwarted by Messi. As Mike Tyson wrote, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, unless they like Messi, until his obsolete, unparalleled talent kills them. In theory, there are many ways to stop Messi, but in practice, he has many ways to beat you. Hristo Stoichkov, a member of Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona dream team, got the hype rolling in the press. “Once they said they could only stop me with a pistol, but today you need a machine gun to stop Messi,” he said. Basically, it’s a clash between sporting spontaneity and practical wisdom. Spain manager Luis de la Fuente also has Messi’s story, like that of a survivor of a natural disaster.
It was 2004, and Messi’s talent was a whisper rather than fully revealed. “We went to Barcelona to play in the Spanish Cup and I had heard great things about a boy called Messi,” he recalled at his press conference. “We put him in man-to-man marking from the start. And in the 70th minute, the score was 0-0. And when the player who marked him was shown the card, I sent him off. He (Messi) scored four goals in 15 minutes!”
Bellingham, left, and Messi collide during the World Cup semi-final match between England and Argentina in Atlanta. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
He refers to the situation: “What does that mean? That we’re going to mark him as a man-man? No. But we’re going to keep a very close eye on him? Yes.” It’s been 21 years since Messi arrived, and Pau Qubarsi, who has now been appointed to replace him, wasn’t even born. Yet the practical solution to stopping Messi has eluded most managers and defenders. Until Messi has a bad day, it’s as much a daily reality as the sun rising in the east.
Hypothetically, Ferguson’s plan that never materialized is a method teams adopted to slow his attacks: isolate him to the far right in the sunset of his career and find space to fly in his long, pinpoint crosses and diagonal balls. The sting of his delivery was particularly evident in back-to-back matches against England and Egypt. For much of the game, Egypt struggled; They crowded the middle and starved him of space between the lines. He was pushed from the defensive block to the wings, away from the field where he is most lethal. Spain obviously won’t create a low block against him, but they will counter him, aggressively and doggedly, giving him little time on the ball.
Here is the complex beauty of the game, Messi is not press-immune, but he can beat the press with his impeccable maneuvering in tight spaces. He can be nasty when defending the ball and with a nimble move, can take on two or three defenders on the move, leaving room for his teammates. But if he is constantly pressured by defenders after receiving the ball, he chooses the safer option of passing to his nearest teammate. The less time Messi has on the ball, the less, if not completely neutral, threat he becomes individually and to the team as a whole. Not only is Spain’s meanest defense in the tournament, it’s also one of the most mobile and fast. They flick and move the ball like whippets.
The roles of the left-back (Marc Cucurella) and the left-sided midfielder (Fabian Ruiz) are central to ensure that he is not given the freedom to drop around the defence, pull in on the left and pass the ball to the covered fullbacks, Nicolas Tagliafico or Julian Alvarez. Tracking Tagliafico’s runs is imperative, as Argentina do not have an orthodox winger, unlike Angel Di Maria at the last World Cup.
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Some teams tried to stop him by double-man-marking him, with one man taking him goal-side and the other coming around him, pressing his space to cut to the left. Messi can still go around them, or nutmeg them, but there’s a high percentage that he’ll drop back or find a teammate behind him instead.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi vs England in the World Cup semi-final. (AP)
Also strangle his teammates like Rodrigo De Paul and Enzo Fernandez. Use muscle or method. Build a cage, as Jose Mourinho forged in Inter’s coup in Milan in 2010. A rotating triangular man-marking block of Javier Zanetti, Esteban Cambiasso and Thiago Motta held his breath. They marked Dani Alves hard at right-back, leaving him short of supplies.
But as the defenders plot his downfall, he also studies the men who try to stop him. Messi will be familiar with Spain’s setup. They play with lines close together and the players are narrow, just like Barcelona. He knows that they will constantly press him down and try to drag him to the right.
But how many schemes and plots did he foil! Managers have found every way to limit it. Some have even had temporary success. If anyone can stop him, Spain can, that’s how football will look at it. But all tournaments are like trying to catch smoke in a butterfly net. Ferguson would agree.