“No! I don’t know if they’re ever going to heal.”

That’s what Argentina captain and striker Lionel Messi said about the 1-0 loss to Germany in 2014 Fifa World Cup final.

Considered to be one of the greatest players in football, the striker will never forget the final defeat. “We are just going to have to live with it. It is going to be there forever. The World Cup is a very happy memory and a bitter one too because of how it ended, how it all worked out. But it’s always going to be there,” Messi said in an interview with FIFA.com.

That wasn’t the end of Argentina’s misery as they went on to lose two Copa America finals to Chile as well. This was followed by criticism that the Barcelona star has under-achieved with the national team.

However, the Argentine is optimistic that 2018 will bring with it the World Cup that football “owes” him. He had earlier silenced his critics by single-handedly guiding Argentina to the 2018 World Cup main draw against Ecuador.

After winning the do-or-die clash against Ecuador after a magnificent Messi hat-trick, coach Jorge Sampaoli went on to say that football owed him a World Cup. Reacting to that statement, Messi came up with a cheeky response. “Yes, I did hear it, and he said it to me too. I hope football does end up paying me!” said Messi.

Argentina’s up-and-down qualifying campaign

Speaking about Argentina’s qualifying campaign, Messi says he has no idea what he would have done, had the team not qualified. “It was very important because missing out on the World Cup would have been a huge blow, firstly for the squad as a whole and then for me on a personal level. I don’t know how I would have taken it. The same goes for the people of Argentina. Failing to make Russia would have been an all-time low for the country,” he said.

However, Messi backed the national squad to be a changed outfit when it lands in Russia in June 2018.

“We’ve had four competitive matches with a new coach, but the national team’s going to change now that the Ecuador game’s behind us. It’s going to grow and it’s going to get rid of all the tension and fear it felt because of that match and because of the risk of not achieving our objective. The national team’s going to change a lot,” he said.

Argentina are placed in Group D alongside Iceland, Nigeria and Croatia. They will open their campaign for the June 15 to July 14 event against Iceland on June 16 in Moscow.