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What's the story?
Former Manchester City star and current Olympique Marseille forward, Mario Balotelli, has hailed the Argentine talismanic forward Lionel Messi after he scored his 600th career goal for the Catalan giants, FC Barcelona.
The 28-year-old took to the social media as he shared an Instagram story saying, "For the good of football, please don't compare him to Juve's number 7 again".
In case you didn't know..
Barcelona defeated Liverpool in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. Goals from Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi handed the Catalans a three-goal advantage for the away leg, next week.
Luis Suarez opened the scoring for the Blaugrana who was then followed by Messi who struck a stunning brace, later in the game. The five-time Ballon d'Or winner sealed a comfortable 3-0 win for the hosts as he found the back of the net twice within the last 15 minutes of the game.
Virgil van Dijk and co. had an arduous task of stopping the Argentine who has already scored his 12th goal in the European competition, this term. The Dutch defender insisted that they were not afraid to face Lionel Messi as he said,
“I think he is the best player in the world. But you see how we play and how we defend. We don’t defend one v one, we defend all together and we attack all together as well so we will see. We will be ready."
The heart of the matter
The Italian number nine was watching his former side, Liverpool, taking on the Spanish champions Barcelona in the UCL.
The 31-year-old Barcelona forward scored a stunning free-kick to take his UCL goal tally to 12 goals this season.
Balotelli posted his opinion on the matter through Instagram stories, saying:
"For the good of football, please don't compare him to Juventus' Number 7 again."
The Italian was referring to Lionel Messi's arch-rival, Cristiano Ronaldo.
What's next?
Following a comfortable 3-0 against the Reds, Barcelona will take on Celta Vigo, next in La Liga. While on the other hand, Jurgen Klopp's men have to overturn a 3-0 deficit in order to reach the final in Wanda Metropolitano.
