Footage has emerged from Manchester City's new fly-on-the-wall documentary 'Champions Again!' of Pep Guardiola extolling the footballing virtues of Lionel Messi to his squad.
City have released a new documentary tracking the squad on their march to retaining their Premier League crown.
In a clip from the fly-on-the-wall doc, Guardiola is filmed encouraging his squad to play like Messi and go and finish Club Brugge off in the second half of their Champions League group stage encounter in Belgium.
With his City side 2-0 up, through goals from Joao Cancelo and Riyad Mahrez, Guardiola decided to use part of his team talk to discuss his former player.
Messi, still fresh in the minds of the City players having been downed by a special goal from the Argentine on the previous match day in Paris, was described by Guardiola as a 'competitor' and an 'animal', both qualities, the Catalan said, that made him the best player he has seen.
'Do you know why Messi is the best player I’ve ever seen in my life?' Guardiola was heard asking his players
'Because he is a competitor. He’s an animal. And now, we pass the ball we take a look. When you pass the ball… attack here!' he added.
'You have to score the goals, guys!' he went on to implore his players. 'Messi passes the ball and goes in like a machine. He smells the goal!
'And you have to cross it and you have to arrive.'
The City players heeded the advice of their manager, eventually going on to score a further three goals in the second half to run out comfortable 5-1 winners.
Having been set back early in the group stage by the loss at the Parc des Princes, City responded in the final group games to pip PSG to the top spot.
Guardiola's team would eventually reach the semi-finals, where they were knocked out by Real Madrid in astonishing fashion having not taken their chances to finish the Spanish giants off.
