I Was Sure He Was Going Left But He Didn’t

Former Bayern Munich defender Jérôme Boateng reminisced on the high in May, 2015 in a Champions League game when Lionel Messi dribbled past him in an embarrassing way and said it was bad for him.

Messi ran at the German defender and decided against his usual cutting to his magical left foot and shoot, but instead turned Boateng into his right, causing the defender to fall embarrassingly.

“Normally, he goes left. I was 100% sure he was going left but he didn’t,” Boateng said in the documentary, Thank You, Jérôme by Bayern Munich. “Looking back I can laugh about it and say it is world class.

“It looks bad for me but that’s part of football.”

Boateng has been taunted with it by fans on social media many times and he has always found a humorous way to answer, one was saying he wishes everyone would defend against Messi too.

A year earlier at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the two met in the final where Germany was victorious. Boateng made that a reference point that bad days in football exist and he acknowledged Messi was world class in that final.

“Like in the World Cup final [2014], we won, I and we as the Germany national team had the better ending. He was world class in that game, you have to acknowledge that, even if it didn’t look good.

“Football sometimes comes down to details and in the end they weren’t enough, a real shame because we’d actually had a good season.”

Barcelona won the 2015 UEFA Champions League with the menacing trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar.

All images from Getty