Diego Maradona reveals the advice he gave Lionel Messi which turned him into a goal scoring machine

Football legend, Diego Maradona has revealed the advice he gave Lionel Messi which turned the Barcelona player into a goalscoring machine.

Maradona, who coached Messi when he was the manager of the Argentina national team between 2008 and 2010 said he taught the five-times Ballon d’Or winner how to become a goalscoring machine as well as improving his free-kick technique during the 2010 World Cup.

Messi who has 136 goals for Argentina bagged eight goals directly from free-kicks last season.

Maradona, now coach of Argentine club Gimnasia during a recent press conference said in quotes, “At the World Cup where I was the coach (of Argentina), I took charge of the best version of Messi.

“I coached the best, Messi, and nobody can tell me otherwise, because he was able to skip past up to five players – a phenomenon,” the ex-Barcelona and Napoli forward said.

“He had an issue with free-kicks. When we finished every training session, we kept Leo behind so he could practice, and he started to hit the post.

“I didn’t teach him how to take a free-kick, then he asked me how I was able to score. I said, ‘you just have to hit it in the middle. They aren’t going to give me an Oscar to teach you this’.

“And he replied, ‘but I hit it in the middle and the ball goes this way or that way’ and I told him, ‘don’t worry, you’re going to make it’. Now he just can’t miss.”