Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo both changing how they play

He still has the freedom to play wherever he wants, but he has benefitted from a greater intensity in training at Barcelona and also from the team being more organised. Under Luis Enrique, Barcelona pressure higher up the pitch, they distribute the ball more quickly and there is a lot of movement off the ball. All of that is helping Messi’s decision-making. Previously, he was looking to play around the penalty area and to score goals, but he has now taken a few steps back and you’re more likely to see him in the number 10 position. He’s not just a number 10 because he appears everywhere, but he is enjoying his assists as much as his goals now. He has provided six assists and scored three goals this season, so he has contributed to a 75% of Barcelona’s 12 goals so far. It has taken a while to realise that a 27-year-old body is different to a 21-year-old body. This is an evolution that had been predicted by everybody around him, but he needed to see it and he needed to feel that’s what his body can give him. After what happened at the World Cup – when perhaps his performances weren’t praised as much as he deserved because Argentina’s system didn’t benefit him at all – he has decided to take a couple of steps towards becoming the “new” Lionel Messi. We are seeing the same situation with Cristiano Ronaldo. We will never again see the winger that we used to see flying down the flanks at Old Trafford or in his first few years at Real Madrid; he is now a player that plays up front with freedom. Sometimes he plays on the left wing and lately we have seen him on the right wing a lot, joining in with Gareth Bale. He also plays as a number nine next to Karim Benzema and you also see him dropping deep to play a part in the build-up. The new Real Madrid accumulates bodies in the centre and a lot is built around the combinations of James Rodriguez, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema, Sergio Ramos… and also Ronaldo. That’s an evolution from his usual way of playing. He can accept the limitations of his body as long as he remains important to the team – and he is still very important, albeit in a different way. We started to see some of those changes last season, but it was partly down to physical problems. Now you can see he has accepted his physical limitations – he still hasn’t recovered 100% from his patellar tendon problems – and he is going to change the way he plays.