Diego Maradona's U-turn: Argentine legend now wants 'champion' Lionel Messi to stay

Buenos Aires, Argentina: Argentine football legend Diego Maradona and the country’s President Mauricio Macri urged Lionel Messi not to leave the national team despite his vow to quit after a humiliating defeat. The Barcelona superstar left the field in tears after missing a spot-kick in the Copa America Centenario final shootout against Chile on Sunday. He promptly told reporters he was quitting, throwing Argentine football into turmoil ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.   [caption id=“attachment_1601561” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File picture of Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona. Reuters[/caption] “He has to stay because he still has playing days ahead of him,” Maradona was quoted as saying by La Nacion newspaper online. “He will go to Russia in form to be world champion.” Messi, 29, is widely rated as the best player in the world, but Sunday’s loss was his fourth defeat in an international final for Argentina. After an outpouring of disappointment by fans online, Macri joined the calls for the Barcelona superstar to stay with Argentina. “He called him and told him how proud he feels of the national team’s performance and asked him not to listen to the criticism,” a spokesman for Macri told AFP by telephone. The 1986 World Cup winner Maradona, 55, blamed Argentina’s recent lack of trophies on the country’s football association (AFA). He accused it of not supporting Messi and letting him take the blame for Sunday’s defeat. “Those who are saying he should quit are doing it so that we won’t see what a disaster Argentine football has become,” La Nacion quoted Maradona as saying. Messi and the squad landed back in Buenos Aires on Monday evening after the tournament in the United States. Television cameras followed their coach but the players had yet to make any comment to the media. Messi is loved in Barcelona but his friends complained of how harshly he has been judged in his homeland. “This lad is just saturated with criticism and being so badly treated,” said Ernesto Vecchio, who was Messi’s first coach in his native city of Rosario. “I don’t want him to quit but when I put myself in his shoes it seems unfair that they should look to him as the savior when there are 11 players on the team.