He was Messi's enemy, hated by everyone, now a referee has targeted him

Those duels between Barcelona and Real Madrid, with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, will be remembered for decades. Both teams had great stars, there were memorable goals and victories for both teams in very important matches. There were La Liga and Champions League titles that fans still enjoy to this day.

But there were also tense moments, with violent kicks and blows that provoked fierce fights between players. Lionel Messi was the most affected by this, since due to his talent and speed he was more than once stopped with very strong fouls from the Merengue defenders.

The one who made the Argentine forward suffer the most was Pepe. The Portuguese defender was one of the best defenders in the world at that time, but also one of the toughest. On more than one occasion he hit Messi hard and ended up being sent off.

Now Pepe was remembered by Mark Clattenburg, a 48-year-old English referee who has been a professional referee since 2004. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Clattenburg named the 5 most difficult players he encountered during his career. The chosen ones were Jens Lehmann, Rio Ferdinand, Roy Keane, Craig Bellamy and, obviously, Pepe.

What did he say about him?

The referee's recollection was: "I had a run-in with Pepe in the Champions League final. He was a guy who was always difficult because he'd try to frame stuff and wind attackers up to get them sent off, which is not always a great thing when you're trying to referee a football match".