The greatest ever to play the beautiful game of football, Lionel Messi has revealed who is the toughest man-marker he has faced to date. The legend has been a nightmare for every backline he has met in his career. But, in an interview with DAZN back in 2020, he disclosed the name of the man-marker he has found toughest to beat.
Back then, the FC Barcelona GOAT was ruling La Liga and would often top the charts of top goal-scorers & assist providers. While still ruling Spanish football, the Argentine said (as per FourFourTwo) that the then Girona defender Pablo Maffeo was the “toughest man-marker” he faced.
He further added that man-marking doesn’t concern him much as it happened regularly with him, but Pablo Maffeo’s game was “strange”, it was intense. Leo also expressed his views on the violent tackles that happened in La Liga back then. The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner said that he didn’t care about bad tackles unless he was having a dissatisfactory match.
The No. 10, being the greatest playmaker, had to often deal with rough challenges from the defenders, who didn’t find ways to obstruct him. Messi has in most instances coped with those tackles and remained the top performer.
Pablo Maffeo, a 27-year-old Spanish right-back now, plays for Mallorca. To date, he has featured in 150 La Liga games, scoring five goals and assisting 16 times. He has featured in 8 Bundesliga games. Maffeo’s mother hails from Argentina, so a few months back, rumors were heard that world champion coach Lionel Scaloni might have had talks with the sensational man-marker.