Soccer: I have the attributes of Messi in his Prime

"Lin, Lin, are you listening to me?"

Deulofeu saw his friend zoning out, so he reached out and waved his hand in front of him, asking with a puzzled expression.

"Yeah, I'm listening!"

Lin Quan snapped out of it and replied.

Deulofeu looked skeptical, curious about what Lin Quan was thinking about since he didn't respond even after being called several times.

Seeing his friend's puzzled expression, Lin Quan knew his curiosity was piqued.

So he came up with an excuse and said:

"I was just thinking, how many goals do you think Messi will score this year?"

Messi was Deulofeu's idol, so when Lin Quan mentioned him, Deulofeu immediately became interested.

"I think he'll score around sixty or seventy goals?"

In the 2010-2011 season, Messi scored a total of 57 goals, including 53 for the club and 4 for the national team.

His performance this season is clearly better than last year, so there's a good chance his total goals will exceed last year's.

Hearing Deulofeu's answer, Lin Quan shook his head and said with a smile:

"Gerard, isn't Messi your idol? Why are you predicting so conservatively?"

"Conservative?"

Deulofeu looked confused. Sixty or seventy goals were considered conservative?

He was curious, how many goals did Lin Quan think would be considered not conservative?

"Then how many goals do you think Messi will score?"

"I think he'll get around eighty or even ninety goals!"

Lin Quan answered seriously.

"Don't joke with me. Do you know what the world record is?"

Hearing Lin Quan's words, Deulofeu's eyes widened in disbelief.

Currently, the world record is only 85 goals.

If Messi could score eighty or ninety goals, does that mean he has a chance to break the world record?

But breaking this world record wouldn't be easy.

Gerd Müller set the record in 1972, and for the past 40 years, no one has come close to it, let alone broken it.

Although Messi is great, Deulofeu couldn't imagine him breaking this record.

"I know, the current world record is 85 goals set by the German player Gerd Müller in 1972 while playing for Bayern Munich!"

"But Messi has already scored 46 goals in the first five months of this year, including this match. He's only less than 40 goals away from Müller's record."

"And it's only been five months this year. He still has plenty of time to score more goals. Based on his current form, I don't think this record is out of reach!"

Finally convinced by Lin Quan, Deulofeu started calculating the probability of Messi breaking the world record with his fingers and didn't bother Lin Quan anymore.

Taking his eyes off Deulofeu, Lin Quan looked back at the field.

After scoring the fourth goal, Messi and the other Barcelona players walked towards the coach's bench to find their coach, Guardiola.

"Thank you, Pep, these four goals are for you!"

Messi gave Guardiola a hug and whispered in his ear.

Guardiola patted Messi's back hard, his eyes slightly red and his nose tingling.

"I also thank you, Leo, you deserve the cheers of a hundred thousand people at Camp Nou!"

Every moment of his four-year coaching career at Camp Nou flashed before his eyes at this moment, leaving him with mixed feelings.

He was a product of Barcelona's youth academy, joining the club at the age of 13 and playing for them for a total of seventeen years.

It could be said that the majority of his professional career was spent at Barcelona.

After retiring and transitioning to coaching, his first team was Barcelona B.

And it was his outstanding coaching performance at Barcelona B that earned him the favor of Barcelona, quickly promoted to the head coach of the first team.

During his four years coaching the first team, he led Barcelona to 3 league titles, 2 Champions League titles, 2 Copa del Rey titles, 3 Spanish Super Cup titles, 2 UEFA Super Cup titles, and 2 FIFA Club World Cup titles.

The four years he coached at Barcelona were called the Dream Three Dynasty by Barcelona fans, the best period in Barcelona's history.

Such a glorious record not only gave him a high position in the hearts of the fans but also earned him the respect and admiration of the players.

There were many top players in their peak, but not many achieved a series of achievements and won a bunch of trophies under a good coach during their peak.

Including Messi and other Barcelona players, especially those young players promoted from the youth academy by Guardiola, were very grateful to him.

Without him sending away big-name players like Ibrahimovic and Eto'o, these young players might not have had a chance to shine.

Without his tiki-taka tactics, Barcelona's results wouldn't have been so good.

Now, this coach who had accompanied their growth and led them to glorious achievements was leaving.

Many young players felt very uneasy, fearing they would lose their place in the new coach's tactical system.

Therefore, when they saw Guardiola's genuine emotions, one by one, they gathered the courage to plead with him again:

"Stay, coach, Barcelona needs you!"

"Yeah, stay, boss, we need you too!"

Guardiola felt a little bitter. He had achieved glory at Barcelona and still had so many outstanding players under his command.

If conditions allowed, he actually didn't want to leave.

However, the club changed its president, Laporta left, and the newly appointed Rosell didn't have a good relationship with him.

Especially with Rosell's drastic reforms under the pretext of clearing out dissidents, even stripping the honorary presidency title from the legendary Cruyff, who had made great contributions to the team.

This made Guardiola very resentful towards Rosell. As the head coach of the club, it would be very difficult for him to do his job well if he couldn't get along with the club president.

This season had already shown signs of this, with some players led by Pique gradually moving away from his control.

This made Guardiola feel that this was a warning from the players' mouthpiece, forcing him to leave.

So, without negotiating a new job, Guardiola decided to resign from Barcelona.

In this way, he expressed his attitude that he was not a traitor to Barcelona, but was forced to leave.

So, when facing the players' retention, he could only smile bitterly and shake his head:

"Don't say these things, kids, the game isn't over yet. Enjoy this game and the cheers of the fans!"

Perhaps Guardiola's refusal to be retained affected the players' emotions, leading to Barcelona not only failing to score in the next games but also committing fouls and receiving cards one after another.

Piqué and the captain Puyol both received yellow cards within five minutes, and Messi missed a one-on-one chance in the 87th minute. If he had scored, he could have staged a miraculous five-goal performance.

If it were a usual situation, Guardiola would have definitely expressed his dissatisfaction on the sidelines. However, this time, he chose to sit calmly on the coach's bench, sipping water, and did not leave his seat.

With the score already four to zero, there was only one minute left in the game. Even with injury time, it would only be four minutes at most, and there was no chance for the opponent to turn the game around.

As long as the players didn't make any more low-level mistakes and avoid getting red cards, everything else didn't matter.

But even if they did get a red card, it wouldn't matter much. Because this season, Barcelona had already lost the league title early. They were trailing Real Madrid by 7 points in the standings, and the result of the last match wouldn't affect the outcome.

In such a non-competitive game, Barcelona could just play casually.

Four minutes later, the referee blew the final whistle.

Thanks to Messi's four-goal performance, Barcelona defeated their city rivals, Espanyol, 4-0 at home, concluding all their home matches of the La Liga season.