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Barcelona coach Gerardo Martino says\u00a0Lionel Messi’s pride had been affected by negative criticism over his recent form.<\/p>\n
The four-time world footballer scored his first league goals from open play since September, with a brace in Barca’s 4-1 win over Sevilla on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Argentine forward has had an injury-hit season, and was sidelined for two months with a hamstring problem.\u00a0Upon returning he failed to score in his first three games before finding the net in the 3-2 home defeat by Valencia at the start of February and Martino said negative criticisms don’t help players.<\/p>\n
\u00a0“When you do that to the best player in the world, this is what happens.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez believes Messi will return to his best form sooner than later after spending\u00a059 days on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Last month, the Argentina forward scored twice against Getafe in both legs of their Copa del Rey tie, before netting a penalty as Barcelona endured a La Liga defeat to Valencia before scoring\u00a0a third brace since his return in January as Barcelona beat Sevilla 4-1 on Sunday.<\/p>\n
However, despite already scoring seven goals since his return, Suarez believes Messi requires support as he readjusts to life after injury.<\/p>\n
“Now, in this delicate moment, his teammates have to give him a hand. He has done everything for the team for a long time, he gave a lot from the team and now he needs help.”<\/p>\n
Suarez understands the difficulty of returning from injury and claims the mental aspect could continue to hamper Messi.<\/p>\n
“In your head, you have the feeling that you can have a problem again, it’s a little bit difficult, but I’m sure that little by little, Messi is going to again be the player everyone knows,” he added.<\/p>\n
“Once he sees that he doesn’t have any physical problem, he will be the player he has been before.”<\/p>\n
“The injuries play in your mind, but once you notice that nothing bad happens, then everything is solved.”<\/p>\n
“It’s only a matter of time until he starts to play without thinking that he can have another injury.” Suarez said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Barcelona coach Gerardo Martino says\u00a0Lionel Messi’s pride had been affected by negative criticism over his recent form. The four-time world footballer scored his first league goals from open play since September, with a brace in Barca’s 4-1 win over Sevilla on Sunday. The Argentine forward has had an injury-hit season, and was sidelined for two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,81],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1704,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions\/1704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}