Maradona, who infamously scored with his hand against England during the 1986 World Cup quarter-final before going on to lift the trophy for Argentina, urged referees to "understand what fair play is" in a bid to get protection for players.

He said: "I think FIFA must definitely look for fair play. Those who don`t want to play clean football should go up into the stands. People want to see football and we want people to watch football peacefully without violence.

"Let's really look for fair play and referees should understand what fair play is.

"When fair play started in 1990, I got a kick against Cameroon that nearly took my head off and we had (Claudio) Caniggia getting a yellow card for something little.

"We've been through that but we want to see good football, we want to have fair play in matches, we want to enjoy this World Cup."

Argentina, looking for their third World Cup title and first since Maradona led them to glory 24 years ago, begin their 2010 campaign against Nigeria in Johannesburg this afternoon.

It is a potentially tough start for Argentina, but Maradona insists he has total faith in his squad.

"It's great what we have. We are proud, we're happy, and I think we've had good preparation. These 23 players, these monsters, these fighters, give me great peace of mind when I see them, which I've never felt before," he said.

Maradona refused to talk about his starting line-up for the Nigeria match but, with all of his players set to be fit the encounter, the 49-year-old admitted "there are not going to be any surprises in the team".

Nigeria coach Lars Lagerback insists his side have no plans to do "a special job" on Messi.

Lagerback said: "We are playing Argentina, not Messi. So there will be no player given the special job to mark him."

Lagerback led Sweden to a 1-1 draw against Argentina in the 2002 World Cup, a result which denied the South Americans a place in the last 16 and he is now hoping to repeat the trick at the helm of the Super Eagles.

"When you play really good teams like Argentina with a lot of really good individuals, you have to have a very good team performance, otherwise you don't win," he told fifa.com.

"But for me football is a combination between the individual skills you have in the team and to try to organise the team as well as possible."