Why Messi has such a poor record against Serie A teams

The Argentine continues to break records in the Champions League, but there's one nation whose teams can justifiably claim to have found a secret to stopping him.Lionel Messi actually boasts a winning record over Italian clubs in Europe, taking part in three Barcelona victories and only one defeat in seven matches against Serie A representatives. However, last Wednesday’s 0-0 draw with AC Milan at San Siro accounted for yet another failure on the Argentine’s part.He hasn't scored a goal in open play in 610 minutes of action against Italian sides in the Champions League, the longest such spell any single nation has achieved against the world’s best footballer.Whether Milan can extend the record to 700 minutes in their quarter-final second leg tonight may well go a long way to deciding who will face Chelsea or Benfica in this year’s final four, but what exactly is it that has worked for the peninsula’s clubs when tackling the 24-year-old?Premier League enthusiasts once regularly bragged about Messi’s poor record against their clubs; and rightly so ... it took him 11 games to find the net against an English side. The floodgates have since opened, with eight goals in his past six games, including two in victorious finals against Manchester United. Now only German clubs have conceded more to him, thanks in large part to his five-goal haul against Bayer Leverkusen in the last round.While the No.10 has appeared four times against Rubin Kazan – his only Russian opponents – without finding the net, two of those outings came as a substitute, meaning he has racked up little over 200 minutes of play in total. Italians, on the other hand, have been adversaries on many occasions since he made his Champions League bow, with his first clash coming against Udinese six seasons ago.Goal.com's Deputy Editor, Carlo Garganese, explains his belief as to why Italians have succeeded where others have failed in quelling the threat of Messi."My views on the decline of modern football are well known," says Carlo, "but if there is one team who technically play the game like it was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago then it is this brilliant Barcelona, who are the one exception to the new rule which suggests that skill and subtlety can't beat power and physique."Italian teams – both club and country – have always been the best in the world defensively and tactically. If you were to list the 10 best defenders of all time, up to seven or eight of them would have been Italian or Italian-based at some point in their career. However, due to a number of rule changes, such as the use of disgraceful synthetic footballs – the defensive and tactical weapons that Italy possess have been blunted. The professionalism, brains and furbo that Italians boast can't really be used to their advantage."