Lionel Messi: Ex Barcelona Star Points Out How Pep Guardiola Has ‘Wrongly’ Influenced Football

• Pep Guardiola is one of the greatest football managers of all time, having made his mark on how football is played
• The Spanish manager has coached some of the best clubs and players in the world, including Lionel Messi at Barcelona
• The Argentina captain has made an interesting comment about his former manager’s influence on football tactics

Pep Guardiola is one of the greatest managers and has a notable influence on football, but his former player, Lionel Messi, thinks he has left a wrong mark on the game.

Guardiola and Messi worked together in the Spaniard’s first managerial job at Barcelona between 2008 and 2012, winning multiple trophies and the player scooping his first four Ballon d'Ors.

The manager has coached at Bayern Munich and is currently at Manchester City since leaving Barca. He has grown in influence, and his tiki-taka style of play has taken over football.

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Like his manager, the player has become arguably the greatest footballer of all time, completing football after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina in Qatar.

How Guardiola ‘ruined’ football according to Messi

Guardiola has spent 15 seasons as a manager and stamped his style of play at the clubs he has managed and on football generally, which Messi believes has a downside.

"The Guardiola era has caused a bit of confusion. Everyone wants to play like that now. They tell 6/7 year olds to play with two touches quickly. At that age, what happened to me needs to happen for these kids… we shouldn’t take away their spontaneity,” he told Clank Media.

Most clubs hire managers with possession-based football, many of whom have come through or are dubbed “Guardiola”. Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was a former assistant at Manchester City.

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According to The Athletic, Chelsea hired Pep’s former assistant Enzo Maresca because of his style of play, which helped Leicester City gain promotion to the Premier League.

What Messi thinks of Sergio Ramos

Sports Brief reported on Messi expressing his feelings about Sergio Ramos who was his rival for a long time before they were teammates at Paris Saint-Germain.

The former Barcelona captain admitted that the former Real Madrid defender was the opponent player who made him the angriest on the pitch during El Clasico.