The doctor who helped Leo Messi overcome his problems when he played for Barcelona speaks

Treating Leo Messi is a privilege within the reach of very few doctors. One of them, the Italian doctor Giuliano Poser, said in an interview given to the BetBrothers website what his experience was like with the Argentine during his time at Fútbol Club Barcelona, when vomiting and muscle problems prevented the world football star from being at 100%.

'"I knew Jorge Cyterszpiler, who was Diego Maradona's first agent. Cyterszpiler, who is no longer with us, and a Lionel Messi teammate on the Argentine national team whose name I am not going to reveal, convinced Messi to come here to see me in Sacile, in northern Italy," he said.'

"For a few years, Lionel came and worked with me systematically. We arranged times for him to arrive when no one could recognize him, to preserve his privacy. He came very regularly and our work together went very well. We are still friends," he said.

'"I don’t speak Spanish. In Argentina I always relied on an interpreter. I understand Spanish, but I speak it poorly. Lionel is a very perceptive and intelligent person. He understands Italian quite well, and I understand Spanish. I have to say that he is a truly good and exceptional person, who genuinely cares about the people around him, because every time he came he brought with him friends, teammates, acquaintances, and family members," he explained.'

"Before his treatment, he would ask me to see them first, while he acted as their interpreter. He has an enormous heart. He is a genuinely generous person, always willing to help others. Like so many of these Argentine footballers, he reached the very top because he had tremendous desire and ambition," he said.

The secret to a long career in football

Giuliano Poser also spoke about the secret of some players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Modric, or Leo Messi himself to keep playing beyond the age of 40.

"No conozco personalmente a Cristiano Ronaldo, pero tengo que decir que es alguien que ha desarrollado su físico de una manera excepcional. Se toma muy en serio su dieta, sus capacidades atléticas y su técnica, mientras que, si hablamos de Messi, es todo lo contrario. Es todo técnica, todo instinto, pura clase, y físicamente tiene lo justo para destacar. Con Lionel es más bien un arte," he explained.

"As for Kane, I don't know him, but I think he's a mix of the two. Looking at him, I think he's physically very strong and takes proper care of his body. You'd have to be a phenomenon like Messi, Cristiano or Kane, or like Luka Modrić, to give another example, who truly live with the aim of reaching those milestones. But not everyone is like that," he warned.

I was not Messi's nutritionist

'Giuliano Poser wanted to clarify what his medical work with Messi was. "First of all, it bothers me a bit, because I have never claimed to be a nutritionist. They simply took it from what they knew about my work with famous footballers. I am a sports doctor and a specialist in sports medicine, and I am interested in athletes' health from a 360-degree perspective, in a holistic way," he clarified.'

"So being introduced that way seems very simplistic to me. I have never described myself that way, but I have read it many times in newspapers, and on television and radio, during the time when people talked quite a lot about me," he recalled.

'"I would say that I am a scholar of the chronic inflammation that affects athletes in various parts of the body. Someone can have chronic lower back pain, or simply headaches—because athletes also suffer from headaches—or a groin strain, heel pain, bilateral or unilateral tendinitis," he said.'

'“My greatest successes are not the ones the newspapers talk about. There are so many successes with people whose names I cannot reveal because we want to maintain anonymity. But they are famous. There have also been failures, because in the past I treated great athletes who did not follow my advice, people whom we now see on television, and some are in poor physical condition because they did not listen to me", '