Messi: "I'd like to be better at penalties"

The Barcelona striker spoke to the programme TdT on Catalunya Ràdio and talked about the evolution of his game, studying rivals and skills of Suárez and Alba.

Leo Messi talks football. In-depth. And now, thanks to Ricard Torquemada’s interview with the Barcelona star on the programme TdT on Catalunya Radio we know a fair few more things about the Argentinean wizard.

I like everything, I try and follow our league, but I also watch Argentinean football and the Copa Libertadores, although sometimes it’s on rather late.

I never watch my own games. I don’t like watching myself. I prefer to look forwards.

It’s a normal process. When I made my debut I was 17. I played in another position, in a different way. I changed the way I play and the way I move around the pitch.

I got a lot better at the final ball, with passes that finish with a goal. I also got a lot better at free-kicks and with my right leg.

I’d like to be more effective with penalties. It’s really hard to practice penalties. It’s not the same practicing as during a match. You can have a plan or something you’ve practiced, but it’s harder than it looks. If the keeper guesses right, they save it. But it’s clear I’d like to be better.

I like it most where I play now. Teams put a lot of people in the middle and it’s easier getting the ball a little bit further back and coming inside from further out. Moving to the wing, the wide players often don’t know what they are meant to do. In the middle it’s harder to get the ball, because there are fewer spaces and a lot of people.

We’re always Barça, but the truth is Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta let us have 90% of the possession of the ball. Nowadays there’s no Xavi or Iniesta in the whole world. I don’t want to say that who we have are bad, they’re amazing, but those guys were unique. But the style hasn’t changed.

He gives me so much. Having him there up front, giving passing options, coming to get the ball, losing his marker, pressing the first man… he gives so much as a number 9. He helps me to be an inverted winger.

I don’t know where he came from - it must have been a magical apparition. Without looking he knows where I am and when I’m going to give the pass. Often I tell him he needs to finish the move, but he tells me he prefers to pass it. The other day he didn’t have any other option than to stick it home.

I don’t like studying our rivals much. I know them because I watch television and sometimes I’ve already played them, but I also don’t like going with a predetermined idea because then you get there and what you’ve studied doesn’t happen.