When Ludovic Giuly joined Barcelona for €7million from Monaco in 2004, he arrived as a title-winner and seasoned international who was in the prime of his career.
He would score on his Barca debut and help the side win La Liga in his first season, snapping a six-year title drought at Camp Nou.
But shortly after this, he know that his days in the Catalonian side’s first-team were numbered, as a youngster was making waves in the club’s La Masia academy.
Guily on why he knew his time at Barca would soon be up
That player, of course, was Lionel Messi. And Giuly has told FourFourTwo that it didn’t take him long to realise just how special the young Argentine was.
“It wasn’t difficult to see,” he said. “When I arrived in 2004, the Barcelona president told me, “There’s this boy named Leo at the club, who will be superb.”
“In my second year, he started training with us and I quickly realised he would replace me – he just did unbelievable things on the ball.
“He wasn’t scoring as many goals as he later would, but it was clear he was different to everyone else. He played football at another pace.
“In January 2007, [Frank] Rijkaard was very honest with me, telling me he was going to give Messi more minutes. I understood and never once displayed any resentment towards Leo.
“I was really happy at Barça and had another year to go on my contract, but at 30 years old I didn’t want to sit on the bench, so I left.”
Giuly left for Roma in the summer of 2007 and would go on to win the Coppa Italia in his only season with the Serie A side, before he finished his career with a three-year stint back in his homeland with Paris Saint-Germain.
Messi, meanwhile, would soon become an icon of the sport and ranked right at the top at no.1 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best footballers ever to play the game.
