Barcelona vs Bayern Munich: Returning Pep Guardiola warns his own players - Lionel Messi is unstoppable

Sides meet in first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Wednesday night

Lionel Messi (GETTY IMAGES)

“It’s one thing knowing him, but it’s another entirely being able to stop him,” said Barcelona coach Luis Enrique of Lionel Messi, when asked if Pep Guardiola’s familiarity with the Barça striker would help him shackle Messi in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg.

When Guardiola himself was asked the same question, he did not disagree. “The way Messi is now, there’s no defence that can stop him,” the Bayern Munich coach said. “It’s impossible. You just have to defend as best you can, but there is no defensive system and there is no coach that can stop him. You have to try to stop the supply, and the support, and you have to be close to him, but a talent that big is unstoppable.’

Messi has scored 51 goals in all competitions this season and yesterday he was in no mood for handing out tributes to his former coach, who he admits to having only crossed paths with once – briefly at a Fifa World Player gala – since Guardiola left Barcelona in 2012.

“It’s only normal that there will be some sort of homage paid to him for everything that he was at this club and for everything that he won here, but once the game starts all that ends,” Messi said.

The Argentine has been on a personal mission this season to make up for Barcelona’s trophyless campaign last time out. “What matters to me are the trophies that you win as a group not the individual honours,” Messi added. “Last year was a difficult year for me. Luckily, when I started this season, it was totally different and I feel very good.”

Messi admitted that the arrival of Luis Suarez had played a part in his change of mood. “I have been lucky to play with some incredible players, spectacular ones,” he said, “but we’re looking very good now, and on and off the pitch the relationship is very good. When you have players who are as good as Neymar and Suarez – two of the best forwards in the world, it’s easy.”

Barcelona, who should be at full strength, could win the treble this season: they are just four games away from winning the Spanish Double of La Liga and the Copa del Rey, with the Champions League on their radar too.

“We feel positive. How can it be any other way?” Luis Enrique added. “It’s not true that I don’t like the word treble,” he responded to one questioner, “I love the word treble, but I know that you can quickly go from winning three to winning zero. You don’t sell the bear’s skin until you have hunted it.”

Pep Guardiola is fearful of what an in-form Barcelona might do to Bayern (Getty Images)

Guardiola won the treble in his first season as Barça coach, 2008-09. Yesterday, returning to the Nou Camp for the first time since quitting, he looked a little overwhelmed when he took his place in the press conference room where he had sat so many times before as home-team coach.

He has taken the Bayern squad to the same La Florida hotel up the city’s Tibidabo mountainside where he took Barcelona before the famous semi-final against Internazionale in 2010, which they lost to Jose Mourinho’s side.

However, Guardiola knows he is here to work not reminisce. “There are a lot of memories. I spent 30 years here at this club. But I’m the Bayern coach now and we are here to play a game of football and to knock Barcelona out of the tournament,” he said. “I knew there was a possibility that I would come back here as a rival coach one day and I know that I have not come back for homage to be paid.”