How a Late-Night Call from Pep Guardiola Propelled Lionel Messi to Dominance

More and more details are emerging from the new book on Pep Guardiola, Pep Confidential: The Inside Story of Pep Guardiola's First Season at Bayern Munich. It's fitting that on the 10-year anniversary of Lionel Messi's senior Barcelona debut, a fascinating story about Messi's positional change surfaced. 

Via The Telegraph, in author Marti Perarnau's study of Guardiola for the book, he was told a story about how Guardiola decided to move Messi from the wing into the "false-nine" position in 2009. 

And that's when Messi became Messi.

On the night before an El Clasico in Madrid, Guardiola hatched a plan where he felt Madrid could be exposed by moving Messi into the centre of the park in more of an attacking-midfield role. 

He phoned Messi late the night before the match, and Guardiola filled him in on the idea to swap positions with Samuel Eto'o 10 minutes into the match to bamboozle Madrid's defenders. 

Per the passage:

"

At 10.30pm there is a gentle knock at Pep's office door and a 21-year-old Leo Messi comes in. The coach shows him the video, pausing it to point out the empty space. He wants his player to make that space his own. From now on it will be 'the Messi zone.' 

'Tomorrow in Madrid I want you to start on the wing as usual, but the minute I give you a sign I want you to move away from the midfielders and into the space I just showed you. The minute Xavi or Andres Iniesta break between the lines and give you the ball I want you to head straight for Casillas' goal.' 

It was a secret between the two. Nobody else would know about the plans until Pep explained to Tito Vilanova the following day in the team hotel. Just minutes before kick-off, Guardiola took Xavi and Iniesta to one side and told them. 

"

Barcelona went on to thrash Madrid 6-2 the next day, and Messi would stay in the false-nine position to well-documented success.