Wes Brown was tasked with marking Lionel Messi in the 2008 Champions League semi-final and he has opened up on how Manchester United stopped him

Brown faced a young Messi in the Champions League semi-finals in 2008 (Image: Getty)

Ex-Manchester United star Wes Brown has revealed that when facing Lionel Messi, you should never let him run at you with the ball. Brown, who faced Messi during the 2008 Champions League semi-finals, admitted that it was difficult to stop the then-wonderkid once he got running against you.

Speaking on Reach’s Euro Thrash podcast – which you can find in YouTube, Apple and Spotify – Brown said: “Once he picks the ball up and starts running, you’re in trouble. Somehow, you’ve got to stop that.

“You can do that just by being close to him, so he has to pass it, but you definitely don’t want him getting it, turning and running at you at full pace. He is very hard to tackle. Not only that, he will bring you out of position to make space for other people to run into.”

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Brown has previously shared the one tactical instruction he was given by Sir Alex Ferguson in the 2021 book ‘Manchester United: Unscripted’. The former England international revealed: “I remember those words going round and round in my head before we played Barcelona in the Champions League semi-finals. I’d had it drilled into me by the gaffer.

“More often than not, it would be my job to keep an eye on Lionel Messi, and the instructions were simple. ‘Don’t. Dive. In’. Over and over again, that was the message.

“Messi was only 20 at the time, but he was already one of the best players in the world. Everybody knew all about him. He and Ronaldo were only young, but they’d both just finished in the top three for the Ballon d’Or. Obviously we trained with Ronny every day, but this was the first time we were coming up against Messi and it was something we were excited about.”

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Brown also admitted that he wouldn’t have been against swapping a young Cristiano Ronaldo for Messi during their primes, adding: “I am not sure you can say that you wouldn’t, but I don’t know. United is where he came into his own as a player, but Messi would have been absolutely fine too in that team.”

“I don’t like the way everyone speaks about him like, your Messi is better than your Ronaldo and Ronaldo is rubbish, that is completely false. They are the two best in the world and it is as simple as that.”