Lionel Messi was 'difficult to deal with' in early Barcelona days
Lionel Messi left Barcelona in the summer as a club legend and all-time leading goalscorer.
And as he bid farewell to the Barcelona fans in a tearful press conference in the summer, the six-time Ballon d'Or winner ended a special relationship between a player and the place he called home for the majority of his life.
But a new documentary is set to reveal that the Messi/Barca relationship wasn't always a smooth one.
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Messi revelations
Journalist Alexandre Julliard, in his book Unsinkable Messi, states that Messi wasn't always the easiest player to deal with.
And following the revelations in Julliard's 2017 book, a documentary in France by RMC sport focuses on the Argentine star's personality.
Julliard says: "He was a difficult person to deal with. He's very reserved and had a communication problem. He didn't tell you things directly.
"When something annoyed him, he used to send someone as a messenger to deal with the problem," Julliard continued.
Guardiola influence on Messi
He also revealed that Pep Guardiola had to go to Messi's house to talk to him about his anger if things weren't going his way.
"If one day he was on the bench or had been replaced, he didn't want to train the next day. Pep Guardiola used to say 'I'm going to lose him'. So he got his car and went to his house to speak to him. This seems crazy nowadays.
"That was his way of asking for help. Going to his home, talking to him and calming him down," said Julliard.
The documentary concludes that Guardiola has been the best manager at handling Messi over his career and tells a tale about Messi's desire to go to the 2008 Olympic Games and how Guardiola handled the situation.
“Messi was committed to making the Olympics. This created tensions as Barcelona were set to play in the Champions League preliminary round. Pep Guardiola asked him: “Leo, do you want to go to the Games?” and Messi answered yes before seeing the coach tell him “so go to the Games and when you come back I want you at the top” said Ignasi Oliva, director of Catalan radio station Arenys.
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