Former Barcelona assistant manager Eder Sarabia has defended his time at the club, citing the opportunities he has had thereafter. Sarabia made a name for himself due to his strict attitude and loud manner of expression, something that seemingly did not go down well with a dressing room full of stars at Barcelona.

Sarabia arrived alongside Quique Setien, in a disastrous eight-month spell that saw Barcelona lose La Liga and suffer their worst ever defeat in Europe to Bayern Munich.

The now Elche manager, speaking to Reliefpoints out that he was later hired by Andorra owner Gerard Pique to manage the side though.

“On the one hand, people were intent on it going wrong, and then it got bigger, but well, I can’t have done that badly or I wouldn’t have been involved when Gerard Pique was the one who hired me for Andorra and when the representation agency I have is Griezmann’s, I give these two examples. That’s the first thing, and then, the relationship that has remained with several footballers and a few conversations that I had with Leo, for example, which (exhales) were amazing. I say that Leo is not only the best in history at playing football, but also at understanding football.”

He goes on to explain just how much he enjoyed speaking to Messi.

“One of those conversations was at the training ground, when the session was over. We had been playing a little game and there was a pressure action, which was sort of disorganised pressure and in the end they got out and created a chance to score. So, I took advantage of that play a little to try to get Leo involved as well, to help us in these types of situations, to try to help his teammates, organise them…”

“Football conversations, which I also later remember that when I entered the staff dressing room as they were a little surprised because almost no one had really had a 30-40 minute conversation with Leo (smiles), natural and talking about football and everything he liked and because, as I told you, it was outrageous how he understood things.”

Sarabia’s Elche are currently sat in fourth spot in Segunda, as they aim for promotion. He was dismissed from Andorra earlier this year after three years in charge, in which he managed to get the principality club side into Segunda and keep them there for the first time.