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Barcelona’s Sanchez: I want to be like Messi

Comment: 0 January 2nd, 2012 by: admin

BARCELONA forward Alexis Sanchez said that one of his goals is to follow in the footsteps of teammate Lionel Messi, whom he described as the world’s best football player.

Sanchez, who joined the Catalans after transferring from Udinese in 2011 for a whopping £33 million, said that at the moment he aims to fly high in terms of performance but at the same time, keep his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds.

‘At Barcelona I am going step-by-step,’ Sanchez told Skysports.

‘I know that I haven’t done anything yet but I am happy for the career that I have had until this moment, most of all the performance I had at Udineses, when I had been chosen as one of the best players in Italy.’

The 23-year old forward continued, saying that despite all the success he’s had so far, he also intends to continue growing and evolving as a player – something that he says is happening in Barcelona.

‘I learn very much from Lionel Messi, the best player in the world,’ he said.

‘This team wants to keep on winning things; I want to be at Barcelona for a long time.  I want to follow the way Messi has gone.

‘That means to win everything.’

His last season with Udinese, Sanchez had a total of 12 goals in 31 appearances.  And since joining Barcelona, the player has shown great form, netting a total of 5 goals including a strike in Barcelona’s 3-1 El Clasico victory against Real Madrid.

Sanchez was recently seen returning to full training with Barcelona leading up to the squad’s Copa del Rey match against Osasuna.

The forward comes back into action after recuperating from a leg injury sustained during the Club World Cup last December.  Sanchez was also earlier sidelined by injury early in his season with Barcelona, putting him out of commission for two months.

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