Argentina (4/1 to win the World Cup) head coach Diego Maradona has played down the hype surrounding his side as they comfortably qualified from Group B at the World Cup in South Africa.
The 1986 world champions qualified from a group which featured the likes of Nigeria, South Korea and Greece with the Argentines beating them all with relative ease.
However, Maradona does not want his squad to get carried away and believe the hype that currently surrounds them.
He said: “Now the road gets more difficult.
“You always hear about Germany, Italy, Brazil playing poorly, but they’re always in the second round, quarters, semi-finals and the final,? he added.
Argentina (Argentina 1/2, draw 3/1, Mexico 5/1) have played some of the best football of the tournament so far and will be confident as they go into their first knockout match against Group A runners-up Mexico.
In Argentina’s last group game against Greece, a match in which they cruised to 2-0 victory, Lionel Messi (18/1 to be top goalscorer at the World Cup) became the youngest player to captain his country at a World Cup.
The 22-year-old Barcelona superstar has revealed that the opportunity to skipper Argentina was “very special” to him.
Maradona rested a number of players including Javier Mascherano and Gonzalo Higuain but decided to play Messi who is considered the best player in the world at the moment.
“We want to be world champions with Messi,” Maradona said.
“We had the opportunity to leave him out but we wanted to play him. A lot of people come to see him play. To leave him out would be a sin,” he added.
Mexico will be looking to cause an upset against Argentina on June 26.
The two sides faced each other at the same stage of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Argentina were victorious that day, winning 2-1 after extra time in Leipzig but this time round Javier Aguirre wants to come to out on top.
He said: “This could be a nice opportunity to take revenge for what happened four years ago.”
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