Puyol insists the constant pressure from the media forced coach Frank Rijkaard to select Messi while he was not fully fit.

"You should allow the professionals to work," he said, insisting that Messi's injury "should serve as a lesson to others."

"The doctors had said that he risked injury if he played, and they [the press] pressured us by saying that he always has to play, and now we are all paying for this," he stated.