Otto Rehhagel “One player cannot stop Lionel Messi but a team as a whole”

Greece coach Otto Rehhagel has a plan to contain Lionel Messi in tomorrow’s final Group B encounter but admits Argentina have plenty of other threats which need taking care of.

FIFA World Player of the Year Messi is the stand-out player in a squad of immense talent and Rehhagel believes just to focus on the Barcelona star would leave them open to failings elsewhere.

Having secured the first FIFA World Cup win in their history last time out against Nigeria, Greece have a chance of qualifying for the second round if they can better Korea Republic’s result against Nigeria.
“I am aware we are playing against Messi, the best player in the world,” said Rehhagel.

“I am not going to tell you how we are going to stop Messi because we don’t give secrets away. “But wherever he turns up we will try to attack him – but no team has been able to stop him yet.
“And for the game tomorrow Carlos Tevez will not play and Diego Milito will take his place but it makes no difference because Argentina have a lot of world-class players.

” However, Konstantinos Katsouranis, celebrating his 31st birthday, gave an indication of what the plan was.
“One player cannot stop Messi but a team as a whole, yes, we can limit him and that is what we are going to do.
” Rehhagel admits his team’s chances against the South Americans are slim but, considering some of the shock results so far at this FIFA World Cup, the veteran German has not given up hope.

“Every player has to play 110% and the game starts at 0-0,” he added.
“We have a chance and at the end I hope we don’t say we have missed an opportunity. We will try to find the right way to hold our own in the individual positions to provide resistance. We will just see how we are going to stand up against the Argentinians. Tomorrow is a big game for us because Argentina have world-class players but we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”