Barcelona captain Marc-Andre ter Stegen has confirmed rumours that his relationship with legendary forward Lionel Messi was not always at its best. The Argentine was the captain before the German, and the pair spent eight years at the club together, but the latter has confirmed that the relationship between the two was not always at its best.
Speaking on Phrasenmaeher, ter Stegen explained that when he was rubbed the wrong way, Messi was capable of showing up others on the training ground in a manner that few could.
“He’s probably the only player who can put a ball at your face if he wants. He has that ability. Others would shoot elsewhere; he could hit the target. He’s done it several times. Where did that anger come from? You’ll have to ask him (…). If he wants to make you look bad, he could,” he told BILD’s podcast, as quoted by Diario AS.
The pair were rumoured to have clashed at times during their latter years together in the lead up to Messi’s exit in 2022, with ter Stegen feeling that perhaps the team did not work hard enough at the other end of the pitch. The current Barcelona captain more or less confirmed as much.
“Messi gets motivation from many things that we don’t. We’ve had times when things didn’t work out between us because he was annoyed with me and I was annoyed with him.”
Ter Stegen: “When he [Luis Enrique] said, after two years, ‘let’s wait and see how pre-season goes’. I was almost angry. I then spoke with the board. They also said: ‘We’re absolutely not letting you go’. The release clause was 80 million at the time.”
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“We never argued, it’s not to say that we didn’t get along at all. But we had our moments, and that’s fine. We were together in the dressing room for a long time, and it was definitely interesting to have him on the team and see how he leads. Whether or not it’s my style, it was interesting to watch. Leo doesn’t have a big mouth; he works hard with presence and needs to say relatively little, to be honest. And when he says something, everyone listens. And that’s what you really want to achieve as a captain: to be listened to and followed.”
It is not unusual for personalities to clash in the dressing room, especially after such a long time together, although these divides can cause issues for team spirit and on the pitch. Messi’s reign at Barcelona often saw the club follow his wishes, although he has always denied a leading role in the club’s decision-making.
