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Lionel Messi is every defender’s nightmare.
Some of the best centrals to play the beautiful game have confirmed how almost impossible it is to stop Messi when he is at the top of his game.
There are times when the ball seems to be glued to his boots, dribbling player after player and finding the net more often when he hits the goalkeeper.
As a result, defenders often make general changes to how they would generally defend themselves against world-class forwards simply because Messi is a completely different beast.
An increase in fouls and aggression is often the solution for some, but countless teams have tried to mistreat Messi and the evidence suggests that the success rate is quite low.
How to stop Messi?
The fact that the man has marked him has failed time and time again, surrounding him immediately when he gains possession only benefits his creativity and leaving him deep only feeds his eye for a pass.
So when the usual tactics are off the table, you can bet that managers and defenders have built unique ways, some more successful than others, to take the lead.
And that’s exactly what YouTuber ‘Messi TheBoss’ explored in a brilliant March compilation, aptly titled: ‘Crazy Ways Players & Teams Try To Stop Messi’.
Crazy ways to stop Messi
We can assume from the thumbnail that the video was inspired by Real Sociedad’s unique approach to neutralizing Messi’s dominance of free throws by flooding the penalty area.
But that’s not the only way opposition teams have gotten creative when it comes to Messi with everything from the classic two-footer to punishing him for penalties.
However, don’t just trust our word, and check out the full build below:
It’s crazy how many times Messi has been hit by Real Madrid players in particular.
You get the feeling that Sergio Ramos and Pepe tried almost every trick in the book to intimidate the Barcelona superstar into whispering abuse to his ear and simply eliminating it from behind.
But some of the most entertaining examples are when defenders have caught on to previous moments of Messi’s magic by taking steps to prevent it from happening again.
That’s perhaps more fun when you can see the defenders shamelessly blocking Messi while Luis Suarez was executing a kick shot, in case they re-executed the penalty kick.
To be fair to defenders, many of these tactics have caused disruptions by simply removing Messi from his routine, but it goes without saying that most strategies are useless.
Regardless, however, Messi can take it as the latest compliment that opposition players and teams have gone through so much thought and effort to stop and stop him alone.
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