Chelsea Star Says It Took Lionel Messi 10 Games To Score Against Him

Chelsea performance advisor and goalkeeper Petr Cech recounted stopping Lionel Messi during past matches, revealing it took a long time before the Barcelona superstar succeeded in scoring past him.

From 2004 to 2012, Chelsea and Barcelona had engaged in a heated rivalry, facing each other 10 times. Cech, who was the Blues’ goalkeeper for all of those matches, managed to stop all of Messi’s attempts during that period.

Cech recalled that he was already playing for Arsenal when the Barca captain finally netted a goal against him. To this day, he is still thrilled over his remarkable accomplishment.

“It took him a long time to score past me – 10 games,” Cech recently told Chelsea's matchday program ahead of the match against Rennes. “In fact, as I was an Arsenal player when he eventually did.”

For Cech, the best stop he made was Messi’s penalty kick in 2012. He was able to anticipate where Messi wanted to shoot, forcing the Argentine to miss.

"He [Messi] missed penalties, I made saves, he hit the post, but he never scored past me at Chelsea,” the goalkeeper recalled. “It was a pleasure to keep a clean sheet against him. When he had the penalty in the Nou Camp in 2012, that was a defining moment.”

"I was thinking about what he could do, what he would do,” he continued. “So my strategy was to wait and wait until I could see where he was going to hit it. So when I moved the way he was going to strike the ball, he knew he had to go high to beat me - but he went too high and it struck the bar.”

Prior to becoming Messi’s ultimate nemesis in Chelsea, Cech revealed that the rivalry between their respective clubs started in 2006. According to the Czech star, a teenage Messi made his presence felt when he managed to send off then-Blues star Asier Del Horno.

“It was when Lionel Messi was announcing himself,” the 38-year-old added. "He was only 17 years old, but everyone could see what a talent and a threat that he was. He got Asier Del Horno sent off in that game and it damaged us a lot.”

From that point forward, Cech said that “things intensified” between Barcelona and Chelsea. Jose Mourinho also contributed to the rivalry as the renowned manager was their coach at the time.

"You could see from that, added with the season previous, it was a collection of small moments building into a bigger picture and the rivalry kept growing,” he pointed out. “Things intensified, especially with Jose being a former Barcelona coach and then being our manager.”

“It got to the point that every year when the Champions League draw was made, we knew that at some point, we would play Barcelona,” he concluded. “It seemed like it was every year and because of that, it meant we built a rivalry between the clubs pretty quick."