Galtier revealed the reason for substituting Leo Messi against Monaco

Lionel Messi hates being pulled out of a game. That's why, as soon as Christophe Galtier decided to replace him with four minutes to go against Monaco, and with the match at a stalemate, the cameras were on ‘La Pulga’, waiting for some gesture of annoyance or disagreement with the change. However, Leo came out like a gentleman, greeted the manager and Pablo Sarabia —his replacement—, and continued his way to the bench.

Then, still with the cameras fixed on Messi, they captured a gesture of Leo in the middle of a chat with the substitutes, where he looks a bit surprised. And of course, that image went viral. In the run-up to the match against Toulouse on Wednesday, Galtier spoke about the changes to his stars and ended up explaining the reason for the substitution.

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"We'll have to make sure he's in top form to be able to be efficient as well. Here we work a lot with our medical, performance and physical department to always present a high-performance team, with a very tight schedule," Galtier began.

He continued: "There will be a break after our match in Lyon on September 18, but there is a break for three to four players because all the other players in the team will be with their national teams. This way, they won't have a break until November 13 and then they will leave for the World Cup”.

Galtier worried about the workload and the World Cup

To close, he justified: "That's why I talk so often with my players to agree not to go from the start in a game or to agree to leave before the end, because it can be a season with 70 games, and a season with 70 games, that long, will be the first time they have ever had it".