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- Barcelona’s former assistant coach believes some players cant handle the pressure of playing with Lionel Messi.
- Juan Carlos Unzue said that Ronald Koeman is doing a good job of managing Lionel Messi and his teammates.
Lionel Messi seems to be a frustrated figure at the Camp Nou. The Argentine was desperate to leave Barcelona this summer after a poor end to the 2019-20 season and a tumultuous summer that saw the club encounter many problems off the field.
Messi was heavily linked with a reunion with former Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. The deal, however, fell through because Messi’s representatives were unable to find a way out of his mammoth €700 million release clause.
The 33-year-old was forced to stay at Barcelona and see out the remainder of his contract, which expires at the end of the season. The Catalans have endured a horrendous start to their 2020-21 La Liga campaign, losing four of their opening ten games.
They currently sit in ninth place in the La Ligs table, having notched up just fourteen points. Barcelona have been heavily reliant on Lionel Messi, but the talismanic forward has cut a frustrated figure in recent weeks.
Juan Carlos Unzue believes Ronald Koeman is handling Lionel Messi and his Barcelona squad well
Unzie believes Lionel Messi expects too much from his teammates, who are sometimes unable to handle such pressure.
“What has kept Messi [where he is] is ambitions and how to live with moments of stress,” Unzue told Youtube channel Idolos.
“He self-demands to himself to keep being the best and, as a result, also wants the best around him, teammates, physio, or coach. That produces a great stress that some teammates are not capable of bearing.”
Lionel Messi’s situation at Barcelona has surprised Unzue. The former assistant coach went on to compare Ronald Koeman’s first few months in charge of Barcelona with that of Luis Enrique.
“The truth is it came as a shock to me that Messi wanted to leave but, knowing the club and Leo, I understand that he might have very, very important reasons for taking this decision.”
“What I was convinced of was that if, in the end, he stayed, he’d give his best and maintain his ambitions. Koeman is managing Messi and the group well, and the situation is not easy, although I think entering a big club that has won titles is harder when they’ve stopped winning.”
“When we arrived with Luis Enrique we did so after a year the team had not won anything. That’s happening to Koeman now, he’s arriving at a messed-up time but if it’s not a messed-up time, you don’t get the call to become coach of Barcelona.”
