{"id":301276,"date":"2023-12-03T11:24:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T11:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstons.com\/?p=301276"},"modified":"2023-12-03T11:24:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T11:24:58","slug":"former-barcelona-player-todibo-reveals-bizarre-lionel-messi-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstons.com\/soccer\/former-barcelona-player-todibo-reveals-bizarre-lionel-messi-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Barcelona player Todibo reveals bizarre Lionel Messi rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1> Former Barcelona player Jean-Clair Todibo reveals bizarre Lionel Messi rule as the Spanish giants took extreme measures to protect their prized asset when he was at the club<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Todibo has revealed that Barcelona enforced a bizarre rule to protect Messi\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The defender believed that this was &#8216;normal&#8217; as Messi was the &#8216;best player&#8217;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u00a0We expected perfection from VAR &#8211; we haven&#8217;t got it: Listen to It&#8217;s All Kicking Off<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Former Barcelona defender Jean-Clair Todibo has revealed that Barcelona enforced a bizarre rule during his time at the club to protect Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n<p>23-year-old Todibo only made four appearances during his time at Barcelona, joining from Toulouse in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>However, he trained along some of the very best players, including World Cup winner Messi.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the Ligue 1 show, Todibo revealed a &#8216;crazy&#8217; rule imposed by higher ups at Barcelona to protect the Argentine.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0&#8216;At Barcelona, we weren&#8217;t allowed to touch Leo Messi in training,&#8217; he revealed.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/03\/11\/78520603-0-image-a-26_1701601492939.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Jean-Clair Todibo has revealed that Barcelona enforced a bizarre rule during his time at the club to protect Lionel Messi<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/03\/11\/78520613-0-image-a-27_1701601500493.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Todibo only made four appearances during his time at Barcelona, joining from Toulouse in 2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/03\/11\/78520607-0-image-a-28_1701601506826.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The current Nice defender said that he wasn&#8217;t allowed to touch Messi in Barcelona training<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0&#8216;It sounds crazy, but it&#8217;s true. We had to be careful. It&#8217;s normal, he&#8217;s the best, you don&#8217;t want to hurt him.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The rule may have come into play during the latter years of Messi&#8217;s career, as Thierry Henry previously revealed that Messi was often fouled in training.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Rio Ferdinand&#8217;s autobiography in 2014, Henry opened up on Mesis&#8217;s reaction to being fouled in training and not being awarded a free-kick.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;When the ball went back to his goalkeeper, he ran back and demanded the ball,&#8217; Henry began.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The goalkeeper rolled him the ball, Messi then ran through the entire team to score in anger.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Since then, it appears that a rule had been introduced to protect Barcelona&#8217;s star as Todibo wasn&#8217;t allowed to endanger Messi.<\/p>\n<p>The defender would finally be allowed to tackle Messi when the pair moved to France, Todibo in 2021 (permanently), and his former team-mate a year later.<\/p>\n<p>Todibo has flourished with Nice, who currently sit second in Ligue 1 &#8211; behind Messi&#8217;s former side PSG.<\/p>\n<p>He has since been linked with a high-profile move to Manchester United.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off\u00a0is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football, launching with a preview show today and every week this season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube , Apple Music and Spotify<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/08\/02\/636x90_facebook_ad_sport.png\" width=\"636\" height=\"90\"><br \/>\nSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12819859\/Barcelona-Jean-Clair-Todibo-Lionel-Messi-bizarre-rule.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Barcelona player Jean-Clair Todibo reveals bizarre Lionel Messi rule as the Spanish giants took extreme measures to protect their <span class=\"more-text\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - 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