Lionel Messi doesn’t need to run all game to stand out. The opposite, in fact. He walks on the grass, sometimes as if he wasn’t there… and attacks when you least expect it.

In the book ‘Pep Guardiola. La metamorfosis’ which comes out on Oct. 20, the writer Marti Perarnau directs the career, the knowledge, the methods and the opinions of the former Barça manager, who is now at Manchester City.

In a really interesting passage the man from Santpedor talks about Messi and highlights his attitude, apparently ‘passive’, on the pitch as the best player in the world.

Here’s how Guardiola explains it: “Look at Messi, it looks like he’s walking around the pitch….he sees that he’s alone; when he sees that they’re watching him, he distances himself…

“He spends the game walking, x-raying every single moment. He’s the player who runs the least in La Liga – but when the ball comes to him, he has the complete X-ray of space-time. He knows exactly where everyone is. And Pam!”