During a one on one with Vicente del Bosque, Andoni Zubizarreta revealed the sometimes negative influence Leo Messi has with managers.
A lot has been said about Lionel Messi’s power with managers. The Argentine star has a level of performance that sometimes grants him the power to make the calls at any squad. Immediately after getting an idea of how good a manager is, he knows how much he’ll be able to control him.
It’s not as if he tells the coach what to do but his level of performance pressures anybody. When Leo put all his teammates on the spot by saying there was no competitive squad to win titles, nobody batted an eye. They all knew they weren’t on his level and they feel ashamed for it. Something similar happens with managers.
Andoni Zubizarreta revealed some interesting information from the time Messi was coached by Gerardo Martino. The former goalie spoke to Vicente del Bosque for El Pais, where he revealed an exchange Messi had with the manager.
Zubizarreta compares Messi to Michael Jordan.
When talking about how demanding players can be towards managers, Zubi said: “That depends on how generous the player is with his manager. ‘Tata’ Martino always told Messi when he was at Barça: ‘I know that I get sacked as soon as you call the president, but damn it, you don’t need to show it to me everyday. I already know this’.
“It’s not easy watching Michael Jordan’s documentary (The Last Dance) and you hear them talk about him, Larry Bird and the other players ban Isaiah Thomas from the squad. He was one of the best point guards of the era but they decided he wasn’t going to play the ‘92 Olympics. Those guys are competitive in everything. They are not easy elements to deal with.”
“In the end, I think we all fear and respect the competition. You’ve felt this in the World Cup final, for example. Brazil’s World Cup manager in 1994, Carlos Parreira told us he sent all his family out of the country when he was at Valencia. He knew that things would be okay if they won but he didn’t know what would happen if they lost against Italy.”
“That’s the limit you live in, having a normal head is very complicated. These are people with complex minds and very difficult to understand. Even though they are easier to deal with on a personal level, finding the time to confront them is never easy. They have many barriers and many complications.”
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