La Liga
Ex-Atletico player reveals Simeone’s nickname for Messi
Former Atletico player Felipe Luis revealed in an interview that Diego Simeone came up with a nickname for Messi during his time at Barcelona so that the Rojiblancos players wouldn’t be afraid of him.
Lionel Messi has developed well in the Barcelona jersey, not only winning titles at a collective and individual level, but also creating nightmares for all his opponents, with Real Madrid, Atlético and Sevilla being his favorite “victims” in terms of the number of goals he scored against them.
All this while all teams did their best to neutralize him, including in player partnerships, with Filipe Luis exposing Diego Simeone’s tactics in the Barcelona-Atlético derby aimed at limiting him as an Argentine.
In particular, the former Rojiblancos player claimed that Simeone’s priority was to stop his compatriot and therefore did not call him by name, but gave him a nickname to encourage his footballers.
“At Atletico, Simeone put four players on Messi! So when he scored it wasn’t any player’s fault, it was just Messi.”
Before the games against Barcelona, Simeone never mentioned Messi’s name in his analysis. He always called him ‘dwarf’ so we wouldn’t be afraid of him when we stood in front of him.”the veteran Brazilian full-back told Marca, with Simeone’s inspiration not paying off considering Messi scored a total of 32 goals against the red and whites of Madrid as a Barcelona player.
Source: sport 24
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