The German footballer, recently retired, opened up on Vibe with Five (Rio Ferdinand's podcast) and explained some of the lies he had to tell to be able to play for Barça. What teams do you support? They Asked. "I support Hertha Berlin, where I was born and then, I'm sorry, Barcelona fans, Barcelona fans are going to hate me, but Real Madrid," he confessed.
"When I played for Barcelona I couldn't say why I couldn't play," acknowledged the former Blaugrana, who added: "Three years before, in an interview when I played for Las Palmas, they asked me who was the best player in the world, and I said 'from this world Ronaldo, from the galaxy, Messi', and they asked me about my favorite team and I said Real Madrid. And then the first question when I signed was what is your favorite club? Barcelona. And the best player in the world ?Messi". "It's one of my big lies, because I usually tell the truth," he said honestly.
In 2019, when he signed for Barça, he stated that it was a gift to be able to play with Messi, Suárez and company, and in the talk with the former Manchester United center back, Rio Ferdinand also spoke about the Argentine star: "Look at Messi, he is a captain. He "He doesn't speak, he doesn't need to speak because he's going to speak on the field."
"We spoke once in the shower because he asked me if it was difficult to score in Italy, because Ronaldo was in Italy at that time. He asked me like 'would I score many goals?'. And I told him 'you would score wherever you want,' You are Messi'" thus praising his former teammate in the culé forward.
"But there you could see a little bit of the rivalry, they respect each other a lot, but you could see that he was asking if it was difficult. I told him that it was more difficult because it is more important in Italy to keep a clean sheet than score" The player confessed.
Boateng, known for his performances in clubs such as Milan, Schalke 04 or Las Palmas, only played 4 games with the Barça shirt, totaling 303 minutes and 0 goals.
