Martino: Messi will be decisive, whether he scores or not

Barcelona manager, Tata Martino is convinced that the fate of his side rests with four-time Ballon d’Or winner, Leo Messi, regardless of whether the Argentine international scores or not.


In his pre-match press conference via UEFA.com, Martino spoke about what his side needs to do over 90 minutes in order to beat Atletico Madrid and feels that they need to prepare for the best possible Atletico Madrid side, which may or may not feature striker, Diego Costa.

“I don’t like to predict what the result might be. What we need to do is to play better than Atlético and to win the game. These teams know each other very well, and they play with completely different styles. All I know is that Barcelona haven’t gone ahead in any of the meetings this season. We need to see if we can do that and to try to control the match. Atlético are not the type of team who will allow us to control the game for the entire 90 minutes, but we’ll try to do that as it is how we like to play.

“We have to prepare thinking that all of Atlético’s players will play. Diego Costa is one of those players that coaches like to wait until the last minute to see whether or not they are available.”

Martino went on to praise forward, Leo Messi and stresses that his compatriot will be decisive.

“Lionel Messi is used to competing at the maximum level in every game so when people believe he doesn’t, it attracts a lot of attention. When there are several games against the same opponent in which he doesn’t score, that can surprise people. Messi has been very important for us in the past four months; he will always be decisive for Barcelona. Opponents always get worried when he is at his best and that’s why they do their best to stop him.”

Martino concluded by stating that the key to Wednesday evening’s match will be to score early, thus changing the dynamics of the match and forcing Atletico Madrid to score one or two more goals.
“The games between the sides have been very even, though we have tended to be superior in the second halves. It won’t be easy but if we try to control the game, and score first, then maybe the outcome will be different. There wasn’t that much difference between the Barcelona that beat Real Madrid and the one that competed against Atlético last week. The main difference was that we won one of those games and drew the other.”