Messi will face Guardiola again! How do they stack up against each other and how does Guardiola plan to defend the star striking trio?

PSG’s matches with Manchester City are not very frequent, but they are all the more spicy. And this year it will be even better. Lionel Messi is likely to face Pep Guardiola’s charges again. What is their record against each other and how does the Citizens coach plan to counter his opponent’s stellar attack?

Pep Guardiola retired from Barcelona in the summer of 2012, then tried his hand at Bayern Munich and now has been in charge of Manchester City since 2016.

It was in Catalonia that he had arguably the best period of his coaching career, at least in terms of the number of trophies he won. He was helped to a large extent by Lionel Messi, who began to shine under Guardiola’s guidance.

Thus, the duels when the star Argentine faced the wards of one of the best strategists of today are extremely watched. And now that Messi is a PSG player, the reputation of this confrontation could grow even more.

The teams of Messi and Guardiola have faced each other four times so far, with both of them enjoying two victories. However, Messi’s individual stats speak for themselves. In fact, he has scored 6 goals in the four duels, scoring in three of them.

Messi has completed all the duels in a Barcelona jersey, Guardiola has won and lost them both against Bayern and Manchester City.

But now it will be a completely different story. The Argentine is still getting used to his new surroundings in Paris, but he has some truly fantastic teammates at his disposal. The trio of Neymar, Mbappé, Messi commands respect. On paper, at least.

And what recipe does Guardiola have for stopping such an offensive force? First and foremost, he hopes that Messi will actually start for the good of the match. After all, he had a slight injury and his start in the starting lineup is not certain.

“But I honestly don’t know how to stop such an attack. It’s a huge quality. It’s too hard to be able to keep that much talent under control. We will try to defend as best we can when we don’t have the ball and make them run as much as possible when we are on the ball,” the Citizens coach was heard saying.

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