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Give Lionel Messi time to decide on Argentina future: Javier Saviola
Javier Saviola is part of a Barcelona Legends’ team which will play former players from Mohun Bagan at the Salt Lake stadium on Friday evening.
Given that he was sharing it with two World Cup winners and three who were part of the best Barcelona teams in Europe, it was quite a football high table from where Javier Saviola spoke about Lionel Messi here on Thursday.
“We all know Argentina didn’t perform as expected in the last World Cup. But I think we should just let Messi be. Just let him relax. He will need time to decide whether he wants to play with Argentina. Hopefully, he will come back but if it is otherwise, it will be his personal choice,” said Saviola, who shared a World Cup campaign with Messi in 2006 and won an Olympic gold in 2004.
Now, 36, Saviola is part of a Barcelona Legends’ team which will play former players from Mohun Bagan at the Salt Lake stadium on Friday evening. Also in the squad here are Edmilson and Juliano Belletti, both World Cup winners in 2002, Simao Sabrosa and Jari Littmanen. They will be coached by Albert ‘Chapi’ Ferrer, who played under Johan Cruyff at Barcelona and won the Champions League in 1992.
Ferrer, Saviola, Edmilson and Belleti, who scored the winner in the 2006 Champions League final against Arsenal --- “my only goal in three seasons but then my job was to pass it to Saviola to get the goals,” he said ---- attended a media interaction ahead of the game against a club that is 10 years older than Barcelona.
And that wasn’t all that Saviola, who has played for Real Madrid and Barcelona, had to say about his national team. “Argentina have a lot of talented players who play for the best clubs in the world but to do well at a major competition you need to be a real team. I hope the next time we play a tournament we will be a team and not a collection of individuals. Only then, will we be in a position we deserve,” said Saviola who, having started at River Plate, has been part of two of football’s biggest club rivalries.
When the conversation shifted to Barcelona and how Pep Guardiola built on Johan Cruyff’s ideas, Ferrer, Guardiola’s teammate and part of the side that won the European Cup in 1992, took over. “I have been fortunate to play six seasons under Cruyff. He was, as Pep has pointed out, the foundation on which Barcelona built its idea of football. Cruyff saw things before everyone else, like playing three at the back. Pep accepted that philosophy and adapted it to modern football. It would be difficult to win now playing the way we did so Pep has added more velocity, more tactics but the essence of playing stays what it was under Cruyff,” he said.
Under Ferrer, the legends team has won five of their eight matches including a 2-2 draw against Manchester United legends. Their last game was in Romania in June.
