"I'm very hurt at not being able to bring the Cup to Argentina," talisman Lionel Messi said, after losing in the finals against Germany at 1-0.

"I am very angry at the way we lost, so close to the penalties, especially as we had the best chances. I do not care about the 'golden ball'. I am just upset by the wasted chances.

"We had the best chances, with [Gonzalo] Higuain, mine and [Rodrigo] Palacios. We knew we could not dominate the game but we knew what we wanted to do.

"Right now I do not care nothing, not about my prize, nothing. I just wanted to lift the cup and bring it to Argentina. The pain is very great."

And while Messi does not want the Golden Ball to himself, fans, and even Maradona, previous holder of the said Golden Ball, have expressed all disappointment with Fifa's jurisdiction on the award.

"Lio is worthy of all the praise - he is the best but when judges award you something you do not deserve to win, it's unfair," Maradona said.

"I saw it as I did and he was not the best of the tournament. That should have been James Rodriguez.

"I would give him [Messi] heaven if possible. But it's not right when someone wins something that he shouldn't have won just because of some marketing plan."

The Golden Ball Award winner is chosen by Fifa's special team of strategists named the technical study group. But some may say that it is just a marketings strategy, as even Fifa president Sepp Blatter admitted that 'I was myself a little bit surprised when I saw Messi coming up for the golden ball'.

There is also a hypothesis that Messi could never be as great as the previous holder of the Golden Ball awards such as Maradona and Pele.