After announcing his retirement from professional football, Filipe Luís gave a lengthy interview for Charla Podcast that made many headlines. In addition to showing remorse for provoking Ángel Di María in a Madrid derby, the Brazilian had nothing but praise for Lionel Messi.
When speaking about the Barcelona legend, the former Atlético Madrid left-back revealed that coach Diego Simeone used a particular strategy to try and stop the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner. However, Luís made it clear that Messi always found a way to play his game.
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Filipe Luís says that Simeone never mentioned Messi by his name
“Before matches against Barça, Simeone never used Messi’s name… He always called him ‘the dwarf’ so that when we were facing him, we wouldn’t be afraid of him,” said Luís, who retired from football this season at the age of 38.
Filipe Luis: "Messi is the best player I have ever played against. I watched all his matches from 2006 to 2016. Really fun." pic.twitter.com/1JNzZ2O95R
— Barça Universal (@BarcaUniversal) December 16, 2023
Regarding Messi, he added, “He is the best player I have ever played against. I focused a lot on marking him; I watched him. I watched him. I think I watched practically every Messi game from 2006 to 2016. I don’t know, practically all of them because I enjoyed it. If you watch the videos, he faced eight players, stayed between the lines, turned the ball around, faced everyone. Quite a spectacle. And playing against him was a great motivation for me because I didn’t want to change shirts. I wanted him to do nothing. I wanted to leave the field and say, ‘You’ve neutralized Messi; you were the man.’ So I went with a knife between my teeth and got as dirty as I could. If I had to step on him, give him an elbow, whatever I had to do.”
Furthermore, he explained that Messi always managed to overcome the marking they tried to impose on him: “Some coaches put one player to watch Messi, others put two or three players. At Atleti, Simeone put four players to watch only him. And when he scored, whose fault was it? Nobody’s. We had all done our job well, but it was Messi.”
