And it's useful (all Messi fanboys) to ask yourself:
How come?
Messi won UCL and Barca was arguably the best team in Europe
ONLY when Messi was not the 'leader' 'carrier' 'captain', but he was one great start among the many (Xavi, Iniesta and the well-oiled machine of Pep / Suarez, Neymar and the MSN management of Lucho).
On the contrary he failed miserably when he was the sole star and posed as 'leader' 'captain', carrier of the team, and Barca was a mediocre side compared to the top European sides. Even in 18/19 when he was obsessed with UCL, he announced already in the summer that he wants it, and he put his best individual performances in UCL, we saw how it ended...
Van Gaal's
interview from 2019 is always current and eye-opening for all fanboys suffering from Messi-delusion:
"He’s the best individual player in the world. I like him. But why hasn’t he won the Champions League for five years? As captain, you must ask yourself this"
"Guardiola won it with Barcelona because he had Messi and because he didn't let Messi play in his own way. That's the difference”
“Messi adjusted to Guardiola's plan and not the other way around"
"Guardiola had him playing for the benefit of the team but recent coaches have adapted to Messi too much instead of protecting team spirit"
"“Look at Aguero. He played for himself until Guardiola changed him and now moves when he’s supposed to. That’s the art of coaching.”
Of course it takes a Van Gaal, a man who speaks his mind all the time and does not censure himself, to hear the truth in a year when Messi broke records and went later on to win Ballon d'Or.
Since Guardiola left they've been coached by a succession of useless coaches, and you could even argue that Luis Enrique really didn't fathom anything unique, he had some brilliant forwards and had the novel idea of getting them the ball asap, well doh! They were already on the decline by then as a team. The midfield was shot and as for the defence, they had Mathieu partenering Pique with Bartra as his undertstudy although Masherano, fresh off his WC heroics, was back there an awful lot too.
