Messi refreshed after long break

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 2012-2013 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 scored a European record 72 goals last season and it took him just 45 minutes to score his first hat-trick of pre-season as Barca romped to an 8-0 win over Raja Casablanca on Monday (AEST) with Alexis Sanchez (2), Dani Alves, Sergi Gomez and Gerard Delofeu also on target.

It was the Argentine's first experience of playing under new manager Tito Vilanova after he missed the 2-1 win over Hamburg at the weekend through injury and Messi thinks the transition to 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."