Lionel Messi / Leo Messi / Messi

Leo was near his best last night in Barcelona’s 5-0 demolition of Atletico Madrid, but he immediately put the focus on the rest of his team after the match.

“I must thank my colleagues,” he told AS. “We have shown that when we play well, we enjoy our football. “It was a difficult game as Atletico came and stood their ground well,” he continued. “They possess a great team, and earned our respect from the first minute, but the goal put the game in our favour and we quickly took control.”

The Argentine also closed into within two goals of catching legendary Hungarian striker Laszi Kubala, who scored 194 goals in total.Speaking to BarcaTV, Messi said “I’m pretty calm about it. I just take it a game at a time, but obviously I’m very excited about becoming top scorer. Many years have gone by and it’s still the same player [referring to Kubala]. Hopefully I can beat his stats. I want to continue breaking records here”.

“We have to take it all bit by bit, without thinking about milestones. I think the most important thing for this team is to keep winning, and keep winning titles for us and the fans. This is far more important than any individual prize or statistic”

Messi admits that they still have to adapt to the 3-4-3 system that Guardiola has used recently, but he’s pretty excited about it: “We feel pretty comfortable with it. There are some things we still aren’t doing well, just like with the previous system, but that’s OK. It takes time and practice. We still aren’t totally used to it. Personally I’m pretty happy, because up front we have more space and we can link up better with the midfield players, and receive more passes”.