All good points but I’d disagree with you saying Argentina were good enough with Argentina (I’m paraphrasing you there). Without him they’d have got nowhere near the final and imo the current Argentina squad is far superior to the Argentina 86 squad.
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Few teams are good enough to win without their best player so Im not suggesting they could have won in 86 without him. What I am doing is pulling that the mythology that it was Diego and a bunch of other guys. This was a period of sustained success for Argentina football in which they reached 3 finals in 4 tournaments. He was not included in the first of those (a win) and was himself a much reduced influence in the last of those (a loss in the final). It benefits the Maradona mythology to argue that the rest of the guys involved in that run of success were just a bunch of guys, but it’s just not a credible argument.
The great man theory of history is attractive because its simple to retell, but it is invariably wrong.
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Still wouldn’t call it mythology. His legacy is cemented by his achievements at club level at Napoli. Messi and Ronaldo never had to do it with a club a of Napoli’s stature.
I cannot think of another player who made that type of move and achieved what he achieved.
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The story of his international success is. There are other reasons for sure to identify him as one of the greatest ever, if not the best, but so many of the people who do bolster that argument with claims about his success with Argentina that drastically undersell the players he played with. It was an era where most South Americas still played in SA and so were not well known to European fans, especially to the more parochial British fans, which explains why they were maybe under rated. But in SA it was a a period of dominance of Argentinian sides, with them winning the 3 Libetadores around the 86 world cup, and 2 of those sides beating their european counterparts in the International cup (one of which we lost). This Argentinian side was full of the players who won those club trophies. So it was a team full of players who were playing and succeeding at what was the top level of club football at the time.
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On Messi getting paid: How can anyone fault getting paid? Make every cent you can. He is making generational wealth for his family. Taking Saudi money isn’t any worse than the pay check he gets weekly from Qatari airways for playing for both Barca and PSG.
On taxes: If you think Messi knows the Spanish tax laws and purposely tried to circumvent the rules I think your nuts. Messi used the same money guys as the rest of the Barca/Real players used and got bad advise. You want to blame anyone, blame the Barca hierarchy for allowing shady firms to handle their players money.
on being a snide cunt: I love it. He doesn’t open his mouth much, but I love him giving the Dutch players a further ‘fuck off’ after the match they played. The Dutch were following the Argies to the penalty spot during the shootout in an ultimate sign of disrespect trying to intimidate them. The world needs more sporting rivalries. He isn’t doing the Ronaldo everyone look at me act, which I abhor. He is part of the team and operates within the parameters of a team. He doesn’t operate as an individual, which makes him not a snide cunt in my book, but competitive.
This Argentina team is great, and he is one part of it. But his performances within a great team have lived up to the hype. That last goal against Croatia he set up was magical. Just enjoy the ride. It’s hard to compare him to Maradona, they play in such different eras, but Messi’s performance so far has lived up to Maradona’s so far this year imho. He doesn’t have that stand out goal that Maradona had against the English, but he’s come close. Let’s see how he plays in the final. He’s making his own myth that idiots like us will argue about in 30 years on shitty internet forums. Look at the shit Maradona had to slog through to be held up as the greatest- all the drugs/mafia influences, being chucked out of Barca (which is why he did it for a shitty team like Napoli), etc. Cynical old git would have called Maradona a wanker 30 years ago and he’d have been right 
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He didn’t do it alone in Napoli either though. He had Carnevale, Careca, De Napoli, Bagni, a young Ciro Ferrara, Alemao. None of them were in his league obviously but he did have some help. Again it wasn’t a case of Maradona and a bunch of nobodies.
Not nobodies, no. But for me it’s no coincidence Napoli won trophies after he arrived.
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And King Kenny
All in your opinion of course.
You’ve said stuff like this before but slanted it different to make the case of someone being great. Example Pep.
You’ve understated the quality of the side he took over at Barca (see squad 2007 and 2008) to overstate how well he did. In this case you’re overstating the quality of Argentina to understate the importance of Maradona to that side.
I also think take Messi out of this current Argentina and they don’t make the final. They go out in the quarters to a poor Dutch side.
All in my opinion of course.
And hardly done anything since.
You mean I’ve given my opinion before, and had a different opinion in the past about different things that were different?
How rude of me
Huh? Bit touchy. Just disagreed and gave my reasons.
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Until Rafa arrived!
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If Argentina win, that won’t count towards next year’s Balon d’or will it? I’m sure they’ll still find some way to give it to Messi, unimaginative, narrow-minded cretins that they are, but a world cup win the previous calendar year cannot be a reason can it? I’m sick and tired of seeing footballers in the twilight of their careers hogging those awards.
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I don’t see how it cannot.
2022 was crowned well before the WC started so the 2023 winner has to be from the time Benzema won it surely?
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I’m not sure. I thought I read somewhere that they only looked at calendar year. They gave a lot of shady reasons to not give the award to Lewandowski after the year that was skipped.
Congratulations. He’s still a little wanker, and in my humble opinion, not even coming close to his role-model Maradona in footballing terms. But at least, he’s for always ahead of his direct rival Ronaldo now, and will go down as one of the greatest football players to have graced the game. That’s something for the history books, and no-one can take that away from him.
(His despicable off-pitch behaviour takes a lot of the gloss off though. Cheating on taxes is very, very small when you are as rich as he is. He should be ashamed of himself for that.)
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From a purely footballing perspective, well deserved.
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I find the title of this topic tasteless, offensive and disrespectful …
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