Real Madrid He was given task of marking him

After enjoying one of the most storied careers in Spanish football history, Xabi Alonso has eased into retirement, his time with Real Madrid marked an incredible era of Clasico's and the former midfielder recalls Jose Mourinho's plan to stop Lionel Messi.

Alonso was on the opposite side of the fence to Pep Guardiola for so long, that when the Spanish coach signed him for Bayern Munich, many were left stunned.

"Messi has done a lot of damage to me, me, Mourinho and Sergio Ramos talked about him a lot," he explained in an interview with Ecos del Balne.

"We only started to control Messi when I was marking him.

"We sacrificed positions for me to mark him, but once we controlled Messi the matches were even."

Despite the intense rivalry between the two teams at the time, there is a sense that each made the other better,

a notion that the former Liverpool midfielder subscribes to.

"The famous 5-0 made us change a lot of things," he admitted.

"At that time we weren't ready to compete, a year later we were.

"Barcelona were dominant, but by the end of 2011 we knew we could strike against anybody in four moves."

One of Alonso's major disappointments is not lifting the Premier League title with Liverpool.

The Reds had a fantastic opportunity to in 2009 but threw away their momentum with several poor results near the end of the season, the veteran simply feels the team lacked a specific player for a long, domestic campaign.

"We lacked that one special player," he admitted.

"We had an excellent squad but when it came to unlocking defences with flair, we just didn't have that player.

"In the Champions League though, we competed like our lives depended on it."

When he arrived in Bavaria in August 2014, the former Real Madrid midfielder was already 32 years old, yet he played until 2017.

Many believe it was Guardiola who gave him the conditions to extend his career and Alonso himself feels Bayern's style of play made football less physically demanding for him.

"At Bayern we played in the opponents' half for 90 minutes," he confirmed.

"I didn't have to cover that much distance and I held my position.

"This was incredible for me and I actually learnt a lot."