Quique Setien was honest in his views on the Barcelona captain, who is exceptionally talented, but also noted that he is not the most comfortable player to coach.
Setien: “Who I am to change Messi”
Quique Setien and Vicente del Bosque’s conversation in El Pais has sparked a lot of discussions, but one person who thinks the former Barcelona coach has gone a little too far about Leo Messi is Jorge Valdano. Quique Setien was honest in his views on the Barcelona captain, who is exceptionally talented, but also noted that he is not the most comfortable player to coach. “Some players are not easy to manage,” said Setien to Del Bosque. “Among them, Messi, it’s true. You also have to keep in mind that he is the best footballer of all time, and who I am to change him! If Barcelona have accepted him for years as he is and have not changed him”. Jorge, who has served various roles at Real Madrid, believes Setien has revealed too much about Messi in this discussion with Del Bosque.
Jorge Valdano: “Setien does not leave Messi in a perfect position when speaking with Vicente”
“There are implicit, veiled reproaches in the conversation,” Valdano said. “When you speak, either you speak very clearly, or you leave a very uncomfortable suspicion. We all know that he talked about Messi, and that does not leave him in a perfect position when speaking with Vicente. I think the coach is a very senior manager of a company, and what he didn’t say when he was inside the company, he shouldn’t say when he’s outside. That’s my opinion. The dressing room is an exceptional area full of codes, and then what is going on there should not be disseminated, and if it is done, it should be done with complete clarity, with the smallest detail. And here there are some doubts within a speech where Messi doesn’t look very good for me.”
“He experienced that closeness; at some point, he blames himself for not making decisions, that he was afraid of being above the culture of the club. Indeed, there is self-criticism that I find interesting, but I think that the conversation ended up a little overcrowded and, in the end, went a little further than it should. That is my point of view. I’m talking about that idea. It was my turn to be the senior director of a big club, and when I left I forgot everything, I never spoke about the people I was leading at that time, much less in a critical sense.”