6 min readNew JerseyJul 19, 2026 06:30 AM IST Years later, it remains a regret for the legendary Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson. He couldn’t stop Lionel Messi in the Champions League finals, neither in 2009 nor in 2011. “You need centre-backs who are prepared to drop right on top of Messi and not worry about what is happening behind them,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “He’s less of a threat on the side than he is through the centre. When we play Barcelona next time in a Champions League final, I wasn’t going to let him torture us again,” he wrote. The next time never came. But he is not the only manager or defender whose best-laid plans Messi has torn to shreds. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, as Mike Tyson wrote, until they get Messi-fied, until his un-receding, immeasurable genius hits them. In theory, there are several ways to stop Messi, but in practice, he has too many ways to beat you. Hristo Stoichkov, a member …