John Giles joined Off the Ball on Thursday to look back at the Champions League action earlier this week.
Barcelona made easy work of Chelsea to advance to the last eight and the former Republic of Ireland international singled out Lionel Messi for special praise.
The Argentine scored twice against Chelsea to bring his Champions league total to 100 goals in 123 games.
"The genius about Messi and I've talked about it an awful lot - 'positional sense' because your rarely see any of the analysts talking about 'positional sense' - it's 90% of the job actually because everybody is vying for space on the pitch," he told Nathan.
"And what do you see with the great players - he's got plenty of room. And you see Messi - he doesn't stay up the pitch. Staying up the pitch - you're going to be easily marked.
"He drifts back but he drifts into the right position all the time and he's the link-up. In other words, you don't have to be a great player in the Barcelona midfield. Now Iniesta is always playing to find Messi - he finds you and you have to give him the ball then because he's so brilliant with it.
"Messi is absolutely great - I love him, because even a ten yard ball is the right ball. If it needs a 20 yard ball, he sees it all the time to play the most effective ball in any given situation. It might only be 10 yards, 20 yards and when he has to hit the 30 yard/40 yard ball or beat players - he does it. He's an absolute genius and I think he's a brilliant player.
The full interview is available here:
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