Is the stress lastly boiling over at Milan? When Kyle Walker was caught on digital camera confronting teammate Joao Felix through the 2-1 defeat to Napoli, the soccer world took discover—not simply due to the stress, however due to one line that echoed louder than the remainder: “No person right here is Messi.” Now, weeks later, the 34-year-old England worldwide has revealed the complete story behind the heated second—and it’s not fairly what everybody thought.
Throughout that fateful night time on the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Milan trailed 2-0 at halftime. Because the gamers emerged from the dressing room, a digital camera picked up an animated dialog between Walker and Felix. The road “go the ball, no one right here is Messi” went viral—fueling hypothesis of inner discord and throwing Felix, who was struggling to make an impression, into the highlight.
For a lot of, it appeared like a senior participant dressing down a younger star. However because the Englishman now explains, the truth was extra complicated.
What did Kyle Walker say?
Talking on The Kyle Walker Podcast on BBC Sounds, the veteran full-back clarified the that means behind his phrases—and insisted the interplay was removed from a private assault.
“The remark that I mentioned was that ‘nobody is Messi’,” Walker defined. “What I used to be saying to Joao is that at Metropolis, I believe that’s the place we bought most of our pleasure during the last variety of years—by a course of, and that was with passes.” The veteran emphasised that the dialog was about ways, not egos.
“It wasn’t me saying to Joao ‘you’re not Messi, go the ball’. I didn’t simply say it to Joao, it was actually ‘let’s be certain we’ve a course of’. And he agreed with me!”
Felix’s response stunned some critics. In accordance with Walker, the Portuguese ahead acknowledged the necessity for extra managed, process-based soccer. “He mentioned we wanted to have extra passes. It may possibly’t be a lot backwards and forwards soccer. We have to have a bit extra management within the recreation if you’re enjoying in opposition to good groups.”
Message about teamwork
The second sparked broader commentary from Walker concerning the state of contemporary soccer and the parable of particular person brilliance. The England worldwide was fast to level out that whereas gamers like Lionel Messi are exceptions, most groups succeed by collective effort.
“That’s in each workforce on the planet bar sure people who can flip a recreation on its head after they need to,” he mentioned. “I give them their plaudits—Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr, Mo Salah, Ousmane Dembele… aside from that, you say it’s a workforce recreation.”
He then doubled down on his view, saying he had no regrets about what he mentioned—even when the digital camera caught it. “I didn’t know there was a digital camera there. However I nonetheless wouldn’t have modified something I did say.”
