Johannesburg, June 3 (IANS) Lionel Messi says Argentine manager Diego Maradona has given him the right to play freely in his own style in the football World Cup in South Africa.
Argentina are in a tough group with Nigeria, South Korea and Greece. Though they had a disappointing qualifying campaign, the combination of Messi and Maradona makes Argentina a contender for the World title.
Asked what role he has been assigned by Maradona, Messi said here: ‘To be honest, he lets me free to play, the same goes for Barcelona. He wants me to take part and touch the ball as much as possible in the game.’
Admitting that it was a tough qualifying campaign for them, Messi said the players have now settled down and are confident of winning the title.
‘Honestly, after being classified for the World Cup, which was very difficult for us and complicated, we had no chances to get back together again. But the little time we were together and talked about it, we were all very enthusiastic and quite confident that we have a great team and amazing players and that if we train properly we can be the champions of the world,’ said Messi.
The Barcelona striker also feels that the two-time World Cup winners need some luck to lift their third title.
‘All world champion teams or champions of any other cup have had luck in some way or another at some point. In 2006, Argentina was the best team and for penalties, for this little thing, we lost against Germany. This is why there are moments that luck is important but you need to look for it,’ he said.
Messi also feels that it would be tough ride for Argentina in the group phase.
On Nigeria, he said: ‘I have followed the African Cup… and I do believe that with Nigeria you never know what’s going to happen.. They not only have great players but they are very strong physically and yes, African teams are always difficult to beat.’
Messi said that Greece also stand a good chance.
‘I think that Greece is a great team with amazing players. To be honest, I haven’t seen them play much, I don’t know much about them, but I don’t think we need to focus on just one player. As I mentioned before, it’s a great team and we will need to be in form to beat them amongst all the other teams in the group.’
‘In a Word Cup anything can happen. What happened in that Euro Cup was a surprise to everyone, so why can’t it happen in the Word Cup? The favourites to win are always the same, the bigger teams, but there are always surprises,’ he said.
Messi went on to add that in World Cup no team can be taken lightly as 2002 semi-finalists South Korea can create quite a few upsets.
‘I think that there is nothing impossible nowadays in football, as I mentioned before all the teams, even ours are the same, it is a World Cup and, as I see it, in a World Cup there are no easy teams. I wish we could win all the games and get to the finals but it won’t be easy,’ he said.
