Messi toyed with Manchester City for long periods on Wednesday night as Barcelona triumphed 1-0 on the night and 3-1 on aggregate to seal their place in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Ivan Rakitic scored the only goal of the game, while Marc-Andre ter Stegen saved a Sergio Aguero penalty, but the visitors had goalkeeper Joe Hart to thank for stopping Messi from adding to the margin of victory on more than one occasion.
"Playing with Messi is like playing with a living, breathing legend," he told Onda Cero. "He's the complete player.
"Everybody else who plays is controlled by football, but Messi truly controls the game. He is on another level in terms of quality; I have not seen another player as good at him in 30 years."
Mascherano was spotted pointing which direction his Argentina colleague Sergio Aguero would aim his penalty prior to him taking the spot-kick, with ter Stegen following his instructions and saving the strike.
"From limited situations I have seen him take them, I figured it would go that way," he added. "And I was proven right. But all I did was confirm something that was already suspected [by Ter Stegen]."
The Argentina international refused to discuss Saturday's upcoming battle with Real Madrid and insisted that savouring reaching the quarter-final stage of the Champions League was his priority.
"Did you not seen what just happened?" he responded when asked about the Clasico. "I want to focus on today.
"Manchester City are among the top five teams in the world and we deserve worldwide acceptance for this triumph."
No comments:
Post a Comment