Clip showing former Manchester City captain apparently telling teammate Joao Felix “You are not Messi” had gone viral early in April
AC Milan defender Kyle Walker has addressed the controversy surrounding his viral remark caught on camera during a match against Napoli. In the clip, which made headlines earlier in April, Walker in fact told teammate Joao Felix: “We are not Messi, pass the ball.”
It was widely interpreted as him putting down the player for his perceived reluctance to pass the ball. But Walker has clarified on his The Kyle Walker Podcast that the comment was misinterpreted and not aimed at undermining Felix.
“It wasn’t me saying to Joao, ‘You’re not Messi, pass the ball’. It was saying ‘Let’s make sure we have a process’. He agreed with me and said we need to have more passes and a bit more control.”
The England international stressed that his comment wasn’t directed solely at the 25-year-old, but that instead he was telling the team that they needed to maintain composure and structure in possession against strong opposition like Napoli.
“I didn’t just say it to Joao. I didn’t know there was a camera there. But I still wouldn’t have changed anything I did say.”
“The comment I said was nobody is Messi. That’s in every team in the world bar certain individuals who can turn a game on its head when they want to.
“I give them their plaudits – it’s Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr, Mo Salah and Ousmane Dembele, who has been on fire since the start of the year. Apart from that you say it’s a team game.
“What I was saying to Joao is Leo [Messi] is fantastic, one of the players who you can give him the ball and he can go past three, four, five players and put it in the top bin.
“At [Manchester] City most of our joy over the last number of years was from a process. Everything was the process of working out where you were on the pitch. That was with passes.
“If you have a player like Lionel Messi he can take on four players and put it in the back of the net. It makes the game so much easier.
“But against good-level opposition like Napoli I feel you need a process of passing the ball and wearing them down. Then the gaps appear. That was the conversation with Joao.”
