Diego Godin has explained a gesture made during the Supercopa, which appeared to have him telling teammates to aggravate Lionel Messi’s injury.
The Barcelona forward picked up a bruised thigh during the first half of the Supercopa de Espana first leg at the Vicente Calderon.
Visibly struggling with and feeling the muscle, television pictures [below] emerged highlighting Atletico Madrid defender Godin identifying to teammates Messi’s issue, before making a fist sign, as if to indicate to aggravate the injury.
However, the Uruguayan has looked to explain the pictures and make clear that his intention was not to make further deliberate contact with the Argentine.
“These are gestures of football. When you are playing you know what it means,” Godin told A Fondo this week.
“I have seen that he was feeling that area and made gestures towards my teammates that we must tighten.
“We at Atletico play every ball as if it were the last. That is what has earned us many things.
“Obviously it was all with respect to Messi. I do not go out to hurt anybody out there and I will not tell a teammate to go out and hit a colleague either.
“But we must be attentive to what the opponent can do because we have to do everything possible to win a game.
“They are gestures for us to tighten our opponent, to press them and to stay with the ball. It is a final and we have to play to the limit, there was no malice.”
