Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi feels refreshed after a rare free summer.

The World Player of the Year was on international duty with Argentina at the Copa America and World Cup in the past two years, as well as the Olympics in 2008, and he believes the rest will do him good once the 2012-13 campaign gets under way.

He told El Mundo Deportivo, "I haven't been able to do a good pre-season for a long time because I always arrived late. It has been very good to have such a long rest."

Messi thinks the transition to Tito Vilanova since the departure of Pep Guardiola has been smooth.

"The way of training has continued in the same way and we are working with the same people so we haven't noted any changes," he said.

"We are in pre-season and so you notice the tiredness. They kept the ball well and made us run a lot but we will get better with every game.

"We are training very hard and we have to continue like that to arrive in the best shape possible for the important matches."