Maradona backs Messi: «They don’t even let him have a cry in peace»

Diego Armando Maradona has jumped in to back Leo Messi, who is having a rough time as an international player after Argentina’s defeat in the penalty shoot-out against Chile in the Copa América final. Messi, who had criticised the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) ahead of the game, later announced that he was retiring from the national team. «Messi has to stay in the national team. He has to stay! He has a lot of football left in him. He will go to Russia in form to be world champion. He has to rely more on boys who can help take the team forward and less on those who say they have to go. Get those people who don’t let him even have a cry away from him. They don’t play and they don’t even let you have a cry! Those who are saying he should quit are doing it so that we won’t see what a disaster Argentine football has become.»

«They have hung Messi out to dry and I’m not going to leave him on his own. That’s why I want to talk to him: to fight against all of those who left him out there on his own, from the first board member to the last, from Segura to Verón, whoever it is», Maradona told ‘La Nación’ newspaper.

«As far as I’m concerned, the only thing what Leo said serves for is to cover up all of the disasters in Argentinian football. They make him be the one to face the music to paper over all the AFA’s f**k-ups and so now we’re all talking about him, and not them. And to gloss over the fact that we’ve just lost two finals against Chile who, with all my respects, are not exactly the 1974 Netherlands team. And we lost them. Both of them. To tell the truth, the way things are right now, I don’t believe anybody. I get the feeling that they told him ‘Go on, get out there, say something to save our backsides.’ We were crap, and he has been hung out to dry.»