Messi fall made me laugh-Boateng

The German defender was widely mocked on social
media after falling over when Bayern faced
Barcelona last season but he insists his confidence
was not hit
Jerome Boateng has laughed off the reaction to
him falling over as he tried to tackle Lionel Messi
when Barcelona thrashed Bayern Munich 3-0 last
month.
The defender was subject to a barrage of comedy
memes and social media criticism after he tripped
up while trying to backtrack in his own penalty
area as the Argentine scored the Catalans' second.
Boateng has taken the Champions League semi-
final first leg aftermath in his stride, however, and
suggested that such pitfalls come with the territory
when you're matched against Messi.
"That fall didn't really affect me," Boateng told
ESPN . "I was laughing at myself, too! When you fall
down or slip in a situation and somebody scores a
goal, it's normal.
"These things happen; it happens to me, it
happens to other players, I don't care about these
things.
"For me, he's the best player in the world. That's
football. Sometimes you look bad or something
happens. I'm a defender, that doesn't kill me or
anything."
Bayern were unable to salvage the second leg of
the European tussle with Luis Enrique's men,
winning 3-2 but going out 5-3 on aggregate as
they had to settle for just the Bundesliga in 2015.
Boateng is trying to put the defeat in context of
treble-winners Barca's excellence while rejecting
suggestions that Guardiola should have won more
in his first two seasons at the Allianz Arena.
"Of course it was a bad loss for us, and we did
well for 75 minutes or something, and then against
a team like this it's difficult," the Germany
international, 26, added. "Especially the second
goal was a great goal from Messi.
"At the end of the day, you have to continue your
hard work, and next season I will try with the team
again to win the Champions League. Sometimes
you lose, sometimes you win, sometimes you are
unlucky, but that's life."
"I would say it's bull***t to say Guardiola has
underachieved. There are other strong teams,
when you see Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, we are
not the only team on the planet.
"You must see every year, in the last six or seven
years we've been in the Champions League semis
every year, his first season we won the Uefa Super
Cup, Club World Cup, so we won a lot of titles
under Pep and now the second time the
Bundesliga and everybody's like 'oh yes, that's
normal,' but it's not normal at all in how it works.
"Under Pep Guardiola, it's hard work. For me,
Guardiola is one of the best coaches I've ever met.

He's incredibly clever and tactically really good,
and he knows how to speak to us, how to motivate
us and that's what it is like.
"He's a really great coach and I'm really happy I
can train under him. Now, I'm looking forward to
how he is going to prepare us for the new season.
"It always interesting because he's always coming
up with new ideas. He always wants to make every
player better every day and I'm really interested
and excited to see that."