Napoli will take on Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie and ahead of the match, coach of Napoli Gennaro Gattuso gave his thoughts on the impending test. During his pre-match press conference, Gattuso touched on the strength of Barcelona and some historical comparisions: "We will face against a great team, from my part I must thank the team and Ancelotti becuase I have not done anything in this competition. Messi cannot be stopped but we cannot make the mistake of thinking we are playing only against him. Marking him 1-1 does not solve anything. Today we are preparing a strategy, we will see how it favors us, but we will remember we are playing against Barcelona. Maradona is the God of football, I saw him play on film even though I have never seen him from up close. I know the kind of champion he was, one of the best players in the world. Today in Messi I see the same thing and I am sorry I never saw him live, I missed out on something wonderful."
"Lozano must work on finding himself soon, and there are other important players. Today I will decide on the selections, he has not been finding space because other characteristics are important to me. For today's football I would love to have 5 players like me and another 5 like Kakà and Ronaldinho. If you play a match as 11 defenders against 11 attackers, the defenders will win. I like playing more with skilled players than with players like Gattuso: in my early years I had two irons instead of feet."
