The Real Madrid forward knows all about the talent in Spain's squad, having played with and against most of the squad during an outstanding Primera Division campaign.

However, Argentina has a mind-boggling array of talent at their disposal if Diego Maradona can marshall it in the correct way.

"We know that at the moment Spain is the team who plays the best football, but in a World Cup you never know. Anyway Spain is top candidate," he said at an event hosted by gaming site bwin.com.

"Argentina is my country and we will fight for it, hopefully we can bring this beautiful cup to Argentina.

"Hopefully Lionel (Messi) shows the same performance as he does in Spanish League. For us it will be decisive. We know that the World Cup will be very tough because you have the best players there and if we want to win we need to do almost everything perfectly."