‘Barca could still win with B team’

Jurgen Klopp claims Barcelona “can play 50 percent” of their La Liga games with their B team as “Lionel Messi can run 4.3km but score five goals”.

In a scathing assessment of Spain’s top flight, Klopp felt the competition was akin to “a recovery session” at times, so much so that Barca’s youngsters were on par with the League’s smaller clubs and Messi could walk through matches but still help himself to a ’manita’.

“The biggest difference between England and the others is that the competition is always so hard,” he told the Daily Mail.

“So, yes, you can play three games if you have teams with special ability, like Manchester City or Manchester United — two teams and let them play.

‘The big difference to Spain is that Barcelona can play 50 per cent of their games with Team B; or there are games where Lionel Messi runs 4.3 kilometres but scores five goals.

“That’s a recovery session. England has no recovery session, in absolutely any game.

‘You can win, you can win high if you break them at a specific point, but until that point it is always hard, hard, hard.

“So you get three games, 26th, 28th, 31st, at the highest intensity. Not one second of recovery.”

Tags Jurgen Klopp Lionel Messi Liverpool
La Liga - Club News