What it’s like to play with and against Lionel Messi: A privilege and a nightmare

“Having Lionel Messi in your team was a guarantee,” says Marc Muniesa, who had the privilege of sharing a dressing room with the footballer many consider the greatest of all time during his, and Barcelona’s, peak years. 

“You knew the team were going to create chances, and that the opposition were going to be on top of him, sometimes two, three players. And that meant that the other players on our team were free. They couldn’t stop us.”

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Few players have tried to stop Inter Miami’s new No 10 more often than Raul Garcia, who faced Messi 33 times between 2004 and 2021 while playing for Spanish clubs Osasuna, Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao.

“The games against Messi were always marked in the calendar,” Garcia tells The Athletic with a shake of the head. “There was a time when he dominated La Liga completely. My memory is that, never, in any moment, could you switch off. Even though there were games when it seemed he was not really plugged in, or involved in the play then, bang, he took the ball, dribbled past a couple of players, and created a chance. 

“When you saw him up close, you realised just how great a player he was. He was the best midfielder, the best when he took the ball from the wing, and the best at finishing.”

The Athletic has spoken to a dozen players who have shared a pitch with Messi during his career — from the skinny 16-year-old who broke into the Barcelona B team in 2004, all the way through to the determined winner who drove Argentina on to lift the World Cup last December — to find out exactly what it’s like to play with, and against, an all-time great.

Messi has played more than 1,000 competitive games for club and country in two decades of senior football.

The very first of those was a