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UEFA Champions League

MESSI WILL BE CAGED, SAYS UTD’S MANAGER, OLE GUNNAR SOLSJAER

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Manchester United will have to focus on Barca as a whole if they want to halt the advances of Lionel Messi, Ole Gunnar Solsjaer, Manchester United’s manager has admitted ahead of Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League clash with Barcelona at Old Trafford.

It is the first leg of a quarterfinal clash. Manchester United’s record against Barcelona leaves little hope for the Red Devils. In their 8 encounters with Barca they have won only once.

Lionel Messi meanwhile is having a season of his life, having scored 43 goals across all competitions and clearly is one of the gravest threats United will have to deal with. 

Yet, United’s boss appears to be focusing on Barcelona as a whole, because he thinks the team are made up of many top-class players which have to be guarded closely if United want to progress to the next stage of the competition:

“[Messi’s] a fantastic player and he will go down in history as one of best ever,” said Solskjaer.

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“He will be difficult to stop but it’s never impossible; it’s not like it’s Messi against Manchester United.”

“[They have Luis] Suarez, [Philippe] Coutinho, [Arturo] Vidal – so many good players, so we can’t focus on one individual. We have to focus on their eleven players.”

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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