{"id":1966,"date":"2014-02-18T04:56:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T04:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=1966"},"modified":"2014-02-18T04:56:22","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T04:56:22","slug":"focusing-on-messi-will-backfire-we-wont-do-that-city-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/focusing-on-messi-will-backfire-we-wont-do-that-city-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"”Focusing On Messi Will Backfire, We Won’t Do That” City Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says Barcelona striker Lionel Messi has never played badly, adding\u00a0that focusing too heavily on stopping the Argentine could backfire on City as the two sides meet at the Etihad on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Pellegrini, who claims his side is the current \u00a0ruling force in Manchester, and not United says the former World Footballer of the year is either excellent or great.<\/p>\n

”We hope to face the worst Messi \u2013 the great one. Without doubt, it is very difficult to stop Messi because he is the top player of the world. He has a lot of different qualities \u2013 speed, good balance, good finish \u2013 but I don\u2019t think Barcelona is just Messi.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have a lot of other players who will also decide the game as well so it\u2019s important to play as a team defending and attacking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you review their season, they have qualified in the Champions League, they are top of table in the Spanish league and are in the final of Copa del Rey, so they continue to be a very strong team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am absolutely sure that, if we want to have a good result in the first leg, we must prepare a very good game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty-four hours after claiming that City are now bigger than Manchester United, there could not have been a better time to prove that statement than when Lionel Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Pedro and others are visiting.<\/p>\n

Pellegrini has enjoyed some success against the Barca during his decade in Spain coaching Villarreal, Real Madrid and Malaga. The Chilean has won four and drawn four of his 22 encounters with the La Liga Champions\u00a0<\/i>and he insists City will not compromise their attacking approach when they tackle Tata Martino\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spirit of the team is OK and we will see on Tuesday the same team we see every week.\u201d Pellegrini said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in a style of playing. It\u2019s always very important that the fans like the way we play, but I think we can have both \u2013 to achieve important results and play in a style the fans enjoy.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, City’s hopes of securing a first-leg victory have been boosted by the return of Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho, who has been out for weeks due to thigh injury.<\/p>\n

Barcelona arrived in Manchester on Tuesday with a full-strength squad and with Messi having eclipsed Alfredo Di St\u00e9fano in the La Liga goalscoring charts following his two goals in the 6-0 victory against Rayo Vallecano.<\/p>\n

The encounter with Barcelona is City\u2019s first competitive meeting with the Catalans, and it is likely to prove the sternest test of the home side\u2019s prospects of completing an unprecedented quadruple this season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini says Barcelona striker Lionel Messi has never played badly, adding\u00a0that focusing too heavily on stopping the Argentine could backfire on City as the two sides meet at the Etihad on Tuesday. Pellegrini, who claims his side is the current \u00a0ruling force in Manchester, and not United says the former World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1969,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions\/1969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}