"Lionel Messi is unstoppable!" declares Pep Guardiola ahead of Bayern v Barcelona

"Lionel Messi is unstoppable!" declares Pep Guardiola ahead of Bayern v Barcelona

Josep Guardiola said there is no way of stopping Barcelona forward Lionel Messi on the eve of his return to Camp Nou with his Bayern Munich side.

In four years in charge of Barça, Guardiola elevated Messi to levels never really seen previously in football, and now he has been set the task of stopping him doing damage in Wednesday night's Champions League semi-final first leg.

However, the Catalan coach is not sure that is possible.

"If he plays as I expect him to, I'm not sure you can stop him," Guardiola said, before a flurry of more Messi questions.

"Like I said before, I don't think you can stop Messi. If he's how I think he will be, he's too good, so you have to try and limit him in another way.

"I don't think there is a system, a coach or a defender in the world who can stop him."

Guardiola claimed he isn't hung up on stopping Messi and his South American partners Luis Suarez and Neymar, though.

Bayern's plan, he explained, cannot be to defend, as they will have to attack if they want to score an away goal.

"I had an idea of how we would play," Pep continued, "which will be the same but there have been some changes to that plan in the last few days. At the end of the day the basic idea will still be the same.

"We need to score to win. Without scoring it will difficult to win in Munich.

"Thiago scored in Porto and without that it would have been difficult to progress, here it will be the same. It will be hard to get to the final without a goal and it is impossible to just play defence."