'Nobody helped Messi, there's no blood shed'

Argentina were eliminated from the Russia World Cup much sooner than anticipated, and Messi received a lot of blame from the press, although he did have some support.

One of those who came to Messi's defence was retired Argentine footballer Mario Kempes, who said that the other 'Albiceleste' players were just as much to blame.

Stoichkov has now joined Kempes in supporting Messi.

The former Barcelona player has told the rest of the squad: "The team relied only on Messi, this selection went from bad to worse, there are great players without commitment, as if they did not know that this was the last."

"It's not always Messi's fault, Argentina had everything to win, but they did everything to lose," he said. 

Stoichkov believes that Messi, who has not yet revealed if he will continue or not in the Argentina National team, is an easy target for blame: 

"Thank God I was not in that team, I would have done a lot of cleaning out. There's always people who blame someone, and there's always others who are hiding." 

"Nobody helped Messi, there's no blood shed, it's easy to blame Messi, Mascherano or the goalkeeper, but Sampaoli made the wrong decisions in some things and the Federation as well," he concluded.