Walking Messi is Bacar Super Sub

In his latest 'Five things from La Liga' column, Guillem Balague analyses the fantastic form of "super sub" Lionel Messi, as well as Gareth Bale's improvements, Sevilla's striker problem and a couple of promising players at Valencia…

More Messi magic

Diego Simeone said recently that there is a league with Messi and a league without Messi. For those that still don't see what Messi does and say that Diego Maradona used to win games on his own, you listen to the words of Simeone and realise that Barcelona win titles because they have got Messi.
We said in the preview last week that Barcelona have depended a lot on Messi, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Ernesto Valverde - the three key men for this season. There's also Sergio Busquets. Without him against Sevilla the lack of control showed, and while Ivan Rakitic is good with the ball, without the ball he hasn't got what Busquets has - the ability to step up and press high, to break counters and attacks. Busquets is extraordinary, the best in the world at that.
Watch highlights of Barcelona's dramatic draw with Sevilla
Messi, though, has scored in the last six consecutive games and has nine in his last seven. This run came on the back of not scoring for five games before the first leg of the Champions League last-16 clash against Chelsea. Then he scored three against Chelsea over two legs and hasn't looked back.
Is he a super sub? There's an interesting stat that he has scored nine goals in the 13 occasions that he has come off the bench. So yes he is a super sub, because he is fantastic and he makes an impact when he comes on.
He was given two instructions before the game against Sevilla because of his unspecified muscle complaints, which it seems is just fatigue. To not risk anything he was asked not to do long sprints and not to change pace very quickly. He did that, and in the 54 seconds between the two goals, if you watch him, he walks.

He was asked not to do long sprints and not to change pace very quickly...in the 54 seconds between the two goals he walks.

Guillem Balague on Lionel Messi
That's probably for two reasons - he didn't want to force his body through anything and, as I mentioned in my biography of him, he has his emotional volume lower than the rest of the team, which allows him to analyse things with a clear head.
At that point I imagine he thought we will have another chance and he just walked when Sevilla restarted the game and only changed his pace when he received the ball for the second goal.
 

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