Argentina Legend Offers Simple Yet Difficult 'Solution' To Stop Lionel Messi

An Argentina legend suggested a simple yet difficult solution to stopping an incredibly great player like Lionel Messi.

Fernando Caceres was a former Argentina defender who also played 11 seasons in LaLiga. In his career, Caceres played for various clubs such as River Plate, Boca Juniors and Valencia. However, playing for an array of teams wasn’t the most interesting part of the central defender’s professional career.

In a recent interview with the Youtube channel Idolos (via Besoccer.com), Caceres talked about some of the biggest names in the sport and his most memorable moments inside the pitch. One of the names brought up during the discussion was Barcelona superstar Messi.

Caceres was asked to describe what could possibly be done in order to stop Messi inside the pitch. According to the 51-year-old, the only way to do it was to simply “kick him.”

"When Leo gets close to you, what do you do? You don't know, so just kick him, that's the solution you have,” Caceres said.

“Luckily, I never faced Messi, but I would have found it difficult because of the things he does, you can't believe them," he admitted.

Aside from the bizarre idea of literally kicking Messi, Caceres also made a big revelation about the time he was asked to take Ronaldinho out. As per the LaLiga legend, he was once offered “500,000 pesetas" ($3,400) to tackle Ronaldinho in an attempt to have the Brazilian taken out of the game.

“We were playing Celta vs Barcelona in Vigo and on the first touch Ronaldinho tried to make, I hit him from behind,” Caceres revealed.

While Caceres succeeded in tackling Ronaldinho down to the ground hard in the first attempt, he also admitted that he got “scared” after seeing the face of the angry Barcelona star who vowed to give him a challenging match.

“I helped him up and told him I'd been offered 500,000 pesetas (£2,700/$3,400) to take him out. He just looked at me and said: ‘If you can catch me,’” Caceres recounted.

“I didn't go to mark him anymore. I was scared, he was angry and when he got like that, he was very good; a strong and impressive player,” he continued.

Aside from Messi and Ronaldinho, Caceres also recalled an unforgettable match against another Argentina legend, Diego Maradona. “I took somebody out, I didn't know who it was, but I bumped into him. He went down on the floor and was complaining. When I fell, I looked and saw it Diego Maradona,” he said.