Former Argentine and international football star Diego Armando Maradona has denied criticizing his compatriot Lionel Messi, saying the claim is a lie and that the Barcelona captain is a friend.
Maradona confirmed in an interview with Mexican newspaper Marca that his criticism of Messi was not true and that he had not insulted the Barcelona star and the Argentine team, as some claimed.
Some of the media recently quoted Maradona some of the phrases in which he criticized Messi. "It is useless to make someone a leader and he needs to go to the toilet 20 times before each game," he said.
Maradona responded to this statement, which the media claimed came to his tongue, saying: "This is a lie."
"Leo is my friend and I am not talking about something bad about my friend. Anyway, I will tell him this face to face. I will not send him a message. I say Leo is a phenomenon and nothing else. There were players going 20 times to the toilet. I did not mean Messi. "
"At the beginning of October, Maradona demanded in an interview with Fox Sport television that he stop" Messi, "when he said:" He is someone who plays for Barcelona and the Argentine national team, like any other player. "
The former Argentinian, however, made the change in the interview with Marca over a month ago, saying Messi wanted to change his clothes quickly to get out on the field looking for the ball, which many would not have done before.
"I love him and I sympathize with him. Of course, I want to hug him warmly because I have not seen him in a long time. Since Messi started playing in Barcelona, ​​they always try to put us in a constant confrontation," Maradona said of Messi.
"I do not know why they have this obsession with me," he said. "They always want to make us quarrels, but I have a barbecue with Leo and we play tennis and football and we are happy."
The former Napoli player revealed that he had heard Messi crying inside the shower unit in the locker room after Argentina fell to a great result against Germany in the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
"He is a man of principle, I saw him cry in the dressing room," Maradona said.
The Argentine coach expressed his wish that Messi return to the country that has missed him since the end of the World Cup Russia 2018, and said: "He has to return, because if he did not do, we will all be in hell, we do not have that player who can remove the wall, but now it has to rest".
Maradona also spoke about the new coach of Real Madrid, Santiago Solari and the Argentine coach Lionel Scalloni. "They do not have the background to support two teams like these two teams. I do not think they will last long. They do this. "
The former Argentina captain said he had hoped to lead Real, but at the same time he was happy to be with the Mexican club Dourados right now and his presence near his grandson Benjamin, the son of Argentinian striker Sergio Aguero.
"I have a good relationship with Aguero, he is a great father and a great boy," concluded Maradona.