I'm a great admirer of Lionel Messi. Not since Maradona have I enjoyed watching someone play as much as I like watching Messi. And in the ensuing period there has been many "great" players. Cantona, Ronaldo (the brazillian one), Rivaldo, Zidane just to name a few....
I know that its unfair to compare players from different eras (even successful ones) but taking emotion out of the equation I still can't go past Maradona as the best player in the last 30 years (if not all time). For all the accolades that Messi has deservedly achieved, for me (and perhaps millions of Argentinians), his failure to replicate his club success at the international scene will always be a blot on his copy book. thankfully he is still young and has the opportunity to set that record straight. It takes a legendary player like Messi, for football fans to just really appreciate what an out of this world player Maradona was! No disrespect to the rest of '86 Argentina squad, but Maradona may aswell have gone into the nearest pub and given national jerseys to the 10 blokes sitting nearest to the door and I still think Argentina would've won the world cup!
Napoli was nowhere before Maradona's entrance, and faded straight after maradona's departure but what an unbelievable seven years he had there! The reason that for me Maradona is the greatest is that if you took him out of the teams he played in those teams would be nowhere! That is the difference!
I know that its unfair to compare players from different eras (even successful ones) but taking emotion out of the equation I still can't go past Maradona as the best player in the last 30 years (if not all time). For all the accolades that Messi has deservedly achieved, for me (and perhaps millions of Argentinians), his failure to replicate his club success at the international scene will always be a blot on his copy book. thankfully he is still young and has the opportunity to set that record straight. It takes a legendary player like Messi, for football fans to just really appreciate what an out of this world player Maradona was! No disrespect to the rest of '86 Argentina squad, but Maradona may aswell have gone into the nearest pub and given national jerseys to the 10 blokes sitting nearest to the door and I still think Argentina would've won the world cup!
Napoli was nowhere before Maradona's entrance, and faded straight after maradona's departure but what an unbelievable seven years he had there! The reason that for me Maradona is the greatest is that if you took him out of the teams he played in those teams would be nowhere! That is the difference!