It’s also worth noting how early on in his career that tackle from Goikoetxea happened. He was 22. 3 years before Mexico '86.
Given how good he was, even afterwards, it’s hard to imagine that he might have been even better. I love the quote about him and an orange…will find it…
“What Zidane could do with a ball, Maradona could do with an ORANGE.”— Michel Platini
This is another great quote from that link,
“Diego apologised to me after he scored the second goal against England. He could see me unmarked at the far post the whole way but he couldn’t find a gap to get the ball to me. The fact is I felt offended. It was an insult to my profession. I mean, even on a run like that he still has the time to look up and see me. As a player I was nothing compared to him. He was incredible.” — Jorge Valdano
All the kicks he got, they kicked him all over the pitch. When he lived now with al the camera’s and protection players get from the ref’s and VAR, he would have even been greater then he was.
Never understood how that era did not see more fistfights. You tried anything close to that on Wayne Gretzky, and a lovely fella named Dave Semenko would make sure you would be eating soup while you sat out the next few games with a concussion. Goikoetxea was already notorious for that kind of violent tackle.
I can only imagine the genius we could have seen if Barca had acquired Semenko from the Edmonton Oilers. No painkiller addiction, no sale to Napoli, no cocaine habit?
Maradona had lumps taken out of him by cloggers every game he played. He brought lesser players to life and he led his team through skill, passion and nous.
Messi is the best player of the last ten years.
He would not have brought that Argentina team to a World Cup in 1986. Diego did.
These comparisons between eras are never fair to anyone. Completely different game now, less brutal fouls but a significant amount of more sprinting, distances covered, athleticism etc.
I fully agree with this. It’s like trying to compare different racing drivers. It’s practically a different sport.
I think all we can reasonably compare is skill or technique, and influence. Not goals and assists, sprints per 90, games played over a season or anthing like that.
Players like Pele, Maradona and Cruyff influenced the game. They moulded the game in their own image - they had the skill and personality to shape how the game itself is played. The one thing that always gets me about certain players is how the ball always seems to be part of their body. How natural they are with it. Maradona was the peak of that but Ronaldinho, Gascoigne and Best had it too. Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi to a lesser extent - with Pele, CR and Messi I get the feeling that they have to think more about how they interact with the ball. They can do the same things with it that Maradona, Ronaldinho, Best and Gascoigne can do, and they can do the more arduous side of the game better as well, but for some reason the ball just looks more natural at the feet of Maradona, Best, Gascoigne, and Ronaldinho. Does that make sense?
We can probably debate about specific players, maybe a bit subjective to a degree, but yeah sure.
Generally I think the way the game is being played now doesn’t necessarily favour the individual, technical genius type player as much as it used to. Maybe that’s just my impression though.
Spot on mate and the worst offender was the butcher of Seville Goicoxeia who still has the boots he wore with which he hacked and broke Diego’s ankle, in a Glass trophy box.
You’re completely right. Look at our team, which is probably one of the most accomplished ones in modern day football: I don’t think that Klopp would have a place for Maradona as he played at the time, even at his peak.
The irony is that Maradona himself contributed massively to the development of collective moves in football. Stupid comparison I know, but one could say that he was a new virus to the sport, and football as a body had to adapt by changing the way of defending itself against this kind of super-talented players.
As a result, Ronaldinho, who is the only player I’d compare to Maradona in terms of skills, had a harder time during his career to decide games on his own, despite of all his talent.
It’s not just the stature of the teams and players. The era was so different that absolute comparisons just cannot be made. Diego’s best years were spent in a league where despite being full of the best attackers in the world, 20 goals in a season was only achieved 1 time by 1 player (who took pens). If you simply got into double digits that would typically put you towards the top of the pack.
There may have been players whose ability and application meant you were more likely to win more often, but I have never seen a player who had such power over a football. It didn’t matter how it came to him, it ended up exactly where he wanted it to be.
I re-watched that Diego Maradona film by Asif Kapadia. It is so compelling to watch, it sucks the viewer in the film and you feel like you are riding in the car near Maradona.
I felt so sorry for him, the Naples mafia are evil, they just used him and threw him out and the Napoli President was a right selfish tw*t. He should have let Maradona go, maybe, just maybe Maradona could have been saved.
