“I didn’t know there was a camera” - Kyle Walker explains his 'nobody here is Lionel Messi’ comment aimed at Joao Felix
AC Milan defender Kyle Walker has explained his Lionel Messi comments during half time of their Serie A game against Napoli in March 2025. The comments, which were aimed at Joao Felix, were caught on the cameras.
Speaking on his podcast, Walker stated that his comment was not a dig at Felix but just a way to get the best out of the players. He added that he had no idea about the presence of cameras in the tunnel. He said (via GOAL):
"It wasn't me saying to Joao 'you're not Messi, pass the ball'. It was saying 'let's make sure we have a process'. He agreed with me and said we need to have more passes and a bit more control. I didn't just say it to Joao. I didn't know there was a camera there. But I still wouldn't have changed anything I did say.
"The comment I said was nobody is Messi. That's in every team in the world bar certain individuals who can turn a game on its head when they want to. I give them their plaudits - it's Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr, Mo Salah and Ousmane Dembele, who has been on fire since the start of the year. Apart from that you say it's a team game."
He further added:
"What I was saying to Joao is [Rafael] Leao is fantastic. One of the players who you can give him the ball and he can go past three, four, five players and put it in the top bin. At [Manchester] City most of our joy over the last number of years was from a process. Everything was the process of working out where you were on the pitch. That was with passes.
"If you have a player like Lionel Messi he can take on four players and put it in the back of the net. It makes the game so much easier. But against good-level opposition like Napoli I feel you need a process of passing the ball and wearing them down. Then the gaps appear. That was the conversation with Joao."
Here is the incident in question:
Milan went on to lose the match 2-1.
Kyle Walker joined the Italian giants in the January transfer window from Manchester City, at the same time as Joao Felix's loan move from Chelsea. The defender is out with a broken arm right now.
When Kyle Walker snubbed Lionel Messi while naming his toughest opponents
Kyle Walker did not name Lionel Messi when he spoke about his toughest opponents during a conversation with BBC in 2024. He picked Eden Hazard, Sadio Mane, Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr as the ones who had troubled him the most.
However, in a previous interview with FIFA, Walker named Messi as the player he would have liked to play with in his career. The defender claimed he had heard a lot about the Argentine from Pep Guardiola.
Walker has faced Lionel Messi twice in his career. The Englishman has managed to win once, while ending up on the losing side in the other game. Both of these matches came when Manchester City faced Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in the 2021-22 Champions League group stage.
