AS WELL AS being a tenacious central midfielder, former AC Milan and Italy legend Gennaro Gattuso really is one football’s great characters. He shares a lot of characteristics with Roy Keane too – they were both obsessively combative players who since retiring, have become known for being voicing their opinions bluntly.

They also share a similarly poor managerial record, with Gattuso getting into all sorts of bother recently while in charge of Crete. This great rant sums up his coaching style perfectly.

Gattuso has since gone back into punditry and was asked after Lionel Messi’s sensational performance against Bayern, how he would go about stopping the maestro.

He went full Gattuso in response.

“How to stop him? I would not know how to coach players to do that. Perhaps man marking – or even a little kick!,” he said to Omnisport.

If only Jerome Boateng had heard this advice before Wednesday night. Then maybe he would have had a handy one-match ban rather than grass stains on his backside.

And as for Gattuso… no surprise that the man who once loafed a 60-year-old Joe Jordan would be open to a bit of violence.

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