Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is “too good” and impossible to stop, according to Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola.<\/p>\n
Bayern and Barca meet at the Nou Camp in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg, with Guardiola back at the Spanish club for the first time since leaving in 2012.<\/p>\n
“There is not a system or coach to stop talent of Messi’s magnitude,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The way he has been playing over the past four or five months, you cannot stop him. He is too good.”<\/p>\n
Messi, 27, scored twice in Barca’s 8-0 win over Getafe on Saturday to reach 51 goals for the season, and in November became the Spanish league’s all-time top scorer.<\/p>\n
Guardiola spent four years as Barca manager from 2008, winning three league titles, two Champions Leagues and two Club World Cups. The 44-year-old also played for the club for 11 years between 1990 and 2001.<\/p>\n
“Barca is a very important part of my life,” he added. “Until now it was everything but I am here to win. I am not here for a homage but to see Bayern through to the final.”<\/p>\n
Messi, who will make his 100th European appearance in Wednesday’s match, said of Guardiola: “He was with us for a long time and we had the luck to win many titles and experience important moments. He is a coach that studies everything.<\/p>\n
“It is the same for both sides. Pep knows us very well and we know what he asks of his players. It is 50-50, we both know each other very well.”<\/p>\n
Messi also Barca had been “hurt” by their 7-0 aggregate defeat by Bayern in the Champions League semi-finals of 2013.<\/p>\n
“That hurt a lot, but a lot of time has passed,” said the Argentina forward. “We come into the game differently, as do they, and it will be a different tie to that one.”<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi is “too good” and impossible to stop, according to Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola. Bayern and Barca meet at the Nou Camp in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg, with Guardiola back at the Spanish club for the first time since leaving in 2012. “There is not a system or coach to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":114139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-114138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}