Pep Guardiola's long-term Lionel Messi plan hints at Julian Alvarez's future Man City success

Manchester City are set to complete the signing of Argentinian striker Julian Alvarez over the coming days, for an initial fee of £17.9m.

The River Plate forward will become only the second January signing of the Pep Guardiola era, although, unlike Aymeric Laporte, it doesn't look like Alvarez will be joining up with his new teammates in the middle of the season.

That's because City will allow Alvarez to stay at River Plate until July so that he can play in important Copa Libertadores fixtures. If the Buenos Aires-based side progress to the latter stages over the competition, his arrival in Manchester could be further delayed until November.

It's an awkward situation for City to be in - after all, you'd imagine Alvarez would benefit from getting to Manchester as soon as possible so that he can integrate with his teammates and get up to speed with Guardiola's system.

However, during his time at Barcelona, Guardiola showed that City have made the right call in granting River Plate's and Alvarez's wishes.

It was the summer of 2008 and Guardiola had just taken charge of Barcelona, the first top-flight managerial role of his career. Barca had endured an underwhelming couple of years prior to Pep's appointment, so the Catalan tactician was eager to teach his players his methods over the pre-season.

The problem was that Lionel Messi, 21 at the time, wanted to represent Argentina at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The Argentine had missed eight months of the previous two years with muscle injuries, so Barca did not want him risking further injury on the eve of a new season.

The club blocked his release for international duty, with a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport backing their stance after FIFA had insisted they