Lionel Messi © Gallo Images

The Argentine national team is an open wound for the world's best footballer - and not just for Lionel Messi himself, but also for his family.

"Why are they always against him?" Messi's mother Celia Cuccitini asked in an interview with the German Press Agency dpa.

At her home in the neighbourhood of La Bajada in the Argentine city of Rosario, Cuccitini spoke of her son's dilema as the symbol of record-breaking Barcelona and winner of the 2009 Ballon d'Or and World Player award, but also the target of massive criticism for his mediocre performances with Argentina.

"He really goes away very hurt when people say bad things about him," Cuccitini said. "He suffers a lot. He leaves in very bad shape. It then takes him a while to get over it."

Many in Argentina claim that "Lio" does not put as much effort into his games with the national team as he does in the Barca shirt.

"The issue of the national team always burdens him, because he 'does not perform as with Barcelona.' But, well, the reasons are obviously elsewhere. It's not the same players," she said.

Cuccitini did not at all like what she saw and heard at the stadium in Abu Dhabi, when Barcelona won the Club World Cup against Argentine club Estudiantes La Plata with a goal from Messi.

"(They slam him for) celebrating the goal: he's playing for Barca! What if it had been the other way around?" she asked.

"Besides, he played the whole match with the pressure of having Estudiantes fans shout at him: 'Do what you do with the national team.'"

Cuccitini was speaking at the door of her home of many years, facing the street where Messi first played with a football. This is the neighbourhood where the player's parents grew up and met, where his grandparents own a corner store, where Messi first played at the children's football club Grandoli.

The family regularly returns to the humble house, despite the millions of dollars that the striker has earned in his still young career.

Despite her anger at criticism that she regards as unfair, Messi's mother does not deny something which is evident: that her son regularly underperforms with the national team.

"Let's hope that he does well in this World Cup and can show a little bit more," Cuccitini said, "because so far he really has not been able to."

When asked whether she thinks Messi has what it takes to lead Argentina on and off the pitch, which many experts doubt, Cuccitini trusts her son: "Yes, I think he can. That was what happened at Barcelona. He gradually grew, and nowadays he is a leader, the man who takes the team forward."

She made it clear that she thinks Barcelona better utilizes Messi.

"But, of course, there the players turned all out to him, too, because they saw that he could get to be a leader. Let us hope that the same thing happens here with the national team," she said.

Cuccitini avoids any kind of criticism of Argentina national coach Diego Maradona. On the contrary, she underlines the positive effects the legendary coach has had on her son.

"For us Diego was always an idol. In fact, when I realized that 'Lio' was going to make it, I used to say, 'I dream that some day he will be coached by Diego.' I think he knows very well how to lead him, he knows him very well," she said.

"Do I think that the coming one will be Lionel's World Cup? We hold that hope. I think so, I have great faith that it will be."

She wants to see him lift the trophy in Johannesburg so badly that she calls that her main wish for the remainder of her son's footballing career. Indeed, at 22, Messi has already won everything except a title with his country's senior team.

"The World Cup, please, definitely," his mother acknowledges.

Cuccitini knows that her son has already won many things, but she wants more.

"You never settle. And now the wish is that they win the coming World Cup so that everyone can regain confidence in all the boys, because they all deserve it," she said.

After rising through the youth ranks of the Rosario club Newell's Old Boys, Messi left for Barcelona at age 13. He never played professionally in his native Argentina, but his mother thinks that will change in the future.

"He looks forward to that, too," Cuccitini said. "In the future, he wants to end up at a club in Argentina."