Uruguay captain Diego Godin has said that in South America Lionel Messi is marked differently and joked that in Spain players "take photos" with the Barcelona star before playing matches.

EFE

"It's different in South America. There they mark him a lot more. Sometimes we mess around, among teammates, and we say: In Spain before playing the games they take a photo with him, a little joke, but it's the truth," the Atletico Madrid defender said in an interview with Teledoce.

"[In South America], what I see is that people compete a lot more and they mark him a lot more as well. Messi, in truth, plays differently with Argentina than with Barcelona," he added.

In this sense, Atletico's centre-back said that at Barcelona Messi is more "isolated up front" which allows him to "rest more" and means that "when he grabs the ball he is closer to the area and is able to unbalance opponents when he is left one on one.

"[With Argentina] he has to come deeper and he has to break through two lines of players instead of just one, so it is more complicated. The pitches are different, too. It's an accumulation of things that mean Messi's numbers with Barça don't translate to the national team."