“It was a short game, man against man. I said to myself: ‘I’m going to see if I can stop him’. It was humiliating. Pep told me: ‘don’t injure him, Carles'. Stop the training session if you don’t want him to get hurt. I tried everything and he always came out on top. He had another gear.”
This was the anecdote Carles Puyol told La Vanguardia in an incident during a Barcelona training session. His praise of Messi was unequivocal: “This Barça will be remembered as Messi’s Barça; he’s way above anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s an extra-terrestrial and now he’s better than four years ago because he reads the game better. He’s unstoppable,” he said.