Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi sat out the game against Spain with a slight injury and Argentina legend Hugo Gatti criticized the player for not playing through the pain.

Messi was left frustrated on the stands as Spain hammered six past Argentina without their talisman on the pitch. Gatti believed that Cristiano Ronaldo would have played the match even with a pain.

For Gatti, Ronaldo would not have cried off-duty with a slight knock.

“Messi had to have played. People wanted to see you. Cristiano would have done it,” he said.

Cristiano Ronaldo was famously sidelined after just 25 minutes in the final of Euro 2016 following a injury to his left knee. However, he did inspire his team against France, urging the team on during the crucial match.

Gatti believed that too much emphasis has been placed on Messi’s role for Argentina and suggested that he does not believe a team should revolve around one player.

“I do not think Messi is the one who makes the team, I do not believe in those things,” Gatti said.

The burden on Messi has been great in recent years and the playmaker scored a hattrick in the final qualifier against Ecuador to drag lackluster Argentina into the FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Messi has to provide for Argentina if the team are to proceed to the final stages of the tournament and his influence was missed, so much so that Spain strike Diego Costa said that not having Messi on the pitch changed everything for Spain.

"You can see that when Messi is not around it's something else," Costa told reporters after the game. "To have Messi on the pitch changes many things. You can see that when he is not on the pitch, they are missing their leader."