Debut album was good but so is True Blue.
Bite?
Bite?
Maradona appreciation thread | Rest in peace, golden boy.
- Thread starter Green_Red
- Start date
Was watching the Sheffield United game today when the commentator made an interesting anecdote that Maradona was all but signed for SU when they were in the 2nd division for £400.000 in 1978 but pulled out at the last minute because his agents wanted more money.
I'll bet their board are still having nightmares about that one.
I'll bet their board are still having nightmares about that one.
Stop preachin', papa.
As crazy as that sounds, it's actually true.
He could have been part of a "wave" (relatively speaking) of Argentinian players coming to England in the late 70s. *
A "what if..." scenario for the books, indeed.
* Ardilles, Villa, Tarantini - and Alejandro Sabella, mostly known for his later managerial exploits, who actually did join Sheffield United (allegedly as a "cheaper alternative" to Maradona at the time).
Last edited:
The real GOAT
Messi close second
Messi close second
What's crazy is how one decision could of changed a whole generation. Instead of signing Maradona who even at the age of 17 could of easily (probably) given them promotion to the 1st division they signed Alex Sabella and 2 years later they were relegated to the 3rd.
It could quite easily have been one of the biggest what ifs in English football.
Imagine neymar playing in the maradona era.
Maradona the player is a better player than Cruijff. But Cruijff is not only looked upon as a brilliant player but also a brilliant coach and someone who gave a lot more to football than just playing. Maradona the coach is terrible.
Very difficult to compare the two of Maradona and Messi. Insane dribblers and insane playmakers.
Maradona wins on mentality and Messi wins on output.
Its a pleasure to watch both. Watching Maradona was pure theatre, a tainted genius but however controversial, regardless of who was the better player, if I was to pay to watch any player again it would be him.
Pure box office.
Maradona wins on mentality and Messi wins on output.
Its a pleasure to watch both. Watching Maradona was pure theatre, a tainted genius but however controversial, regardless of who was the better player, if I was to pay to watch any player again it would be him.
Pure box office.
The debate about the GOAT goes on. The older I've got, more names get thrown into the mix. (I don't just mean players from this generation).
Growing up, it was always Pele or Maradona. It seems an Insult to me if any other player is mentioned in that bracket. Maybe is nostagla, Maybe it's something I don't want to let go of my childhood days. It's like growing up and realising santa was not real afterall.
There have been so many great players and it's very difficult, if not impossible to say one was the greatest of them all. All I can say is, Messi, Ronaldo (both), zidane, Cryuff, Beckenbaur, Pele, Best, Platini, Puskas, Zico were all genius, but there is only one God.
Happy birthday Diego!
Growing up, it was always Pele or Maradona. It seems an Insult to me if any other player is mentioned in that bracket. Maybe is nostagla, Maybe it's something I don't want to let go of my childhood days. It's like growing up and realising santa was not real afterall.
There have been so many great players and it's very difficult, if not impossible to say one was the greatest of them all. All I can say is, Messi, Ronaldo (both), zidane, Cryuff, Beckenbaur, Pele, Best, Platini, Puskas, Zico were all genius, but there is only one God.
Happy birthday Diego!
That’s a bad argument because non-Europeans weren’t even allowed to win the Ballon d’Or until about 1995.
I started watching football around 2002, so I missed Maradona, Pele, Puskas etc. and also R9's prime years. Watched all the footage I could get of those plqyers, though, if possible even complete games.
When I watch videos of Maradona, he always gives me these 'you can' t play better than that, it's impossible someone bests him'. But then I watch footage of Pele, prime R9 or Messi and feel the exact same way. I find it incredibly hard to rank them. Can understand everyone who prefers one of those four but personally, I just can't decide.
I’m in this boat too I’m afraid. As a 70’s child Diego was the first proper football superstar in my eyes. Still think he’s the most naturally gifted footballer ever and can only begin to imagine what he would achieve with the advancement in the modern game.
Argentina has created 3 of the top 10 players of all time.
That’s mighty impressive for a country of only 40 million people.
He was the reason it took a while before I discovered English football, as he kept my focus on Italy. What Messi can do with a ball is pure magic, but Maradona could do the same with an orange, on a windy day, while people pushed him around and kicked at his feet. I never saw Pelé so to me Maradona will always be the best as I find it hard to imagine, even though I witnessed it, that even Maradona was as good as Maradona was. Because even though you saw it with your own two eyes, you just couldn't believe it. In his peak he was as intelligent in every touch as Cantona or Zidane, his movement even off the ball would put the entire opposition off balance, and his technique was...
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not as good as both Best and Pele and a very weak character imho.
You could easily talk about best being a weak character as well.
You maybe could, but Diego beat them all and he could not head a ball like Pele too.
Hugely gifted drug addict and cheat.
Well just personally I was too young for Cruyff. I guess with him you could then say what about DeStefano for example. Older the player, less people have seen or remember them.
And no, as mentioned, stats wise I can only think of Romario and his goals that compares with Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The consistency for over a decade from both is just phenomenal, but I do think Maradona was just a level above both and anybody else I have seen in my lifetime in sheer ability. To a lesser degree Brazilian Ronaldo too. As great as both are, neither have had the effect n world cups that Ronaldo and especially Maradona did
It's the ones with recency bias who always use that excuse. Simply because they don't understand football used to be played without attacking players being protected from rough housing like they are today. With heavier balls. Fewer substitutes. In an era of 2 points for a win making it far harder to win titles. No to mention the fact there was no freedom of labor movement. A 3 foreigner rule restrictions so assembling super teams to build around a super star or super stars was rare. Even nigh impossible in some cases.
What is silly rather is people thinking the likes of Messi are some sort of untouchable aliens. They have never been. They can be objectively judged and it can be objectively shown others were much better than they. I never get why people think it's a insult to one footballing great to say another was a far better one. It's not like it takes away the greatness of the great who is the lesser of the two
.....
Last edited:
It’s much easier to dribble like Maradona with a heavier ball than it is the bouncy flyaways they play with today. There’s a reason Futsal balls are heavier.
What's really amazing is that Gerd Müller had those insane career achievements (WC, EC, 3x CL) and stats (even better goal ratio than both Ronaldo and Messi; many assists, too) in an era where defenders could commit murder on the pitch, yet the guys that want to bring up C.Ronaldo in the best ever discussion because of his stats never bring up Müller.
Sorry, if you are against people and their exaggeration of Messi, than you should not be responding with exaggeration of Maradona.
Sorry but Maradona wasn't far far better than Messi. Nobody is.
Don't use the "oh old players, did it in potato fields and defenders were savages" hence XYZ are better than today's player. It is similar to, "oh older games were so slow and XYZ player today would have ripped them apart".
Possibly because unlike Muller, Cristiano has been doing it for nearly 15 years, and still doesn't seem to stop.
Also it has more to do with underrating of Muller, than overrating of Cristiano.
In YOUR opinion. There is no exaggeration on my part at all. Messi has had a minimal impact on international football compared to the likes of Pele, Bekenbauer and Maradona. To me, international football, is what separates the greats from each other because at international level you must achieve with what you have. The advantage of having an entire club and playing structure built just for you is none existent. You have to inspire and lead those you are surrounded with to victory. Unlike the likes of Maradona Messi's has failed at this time and again at senior level. So I'll forever be unapologetic about saying he is inferior to the likes of the
them.
I'm simply stating facts. Import rough housing and the tackle from behind into the modern game, plus a heavier ball for example and you have an entirely different and harder game. Yet that is just 3 of the differences in football them and now.
The only thing modern day improved in was player fitness and we'll being The game isn't harder today by any stretch of the imagination. Even the tactics being excelled with currently all came from that era of football. But some prefer to pretend football of that era was backward and piss easy.
They're not actually heavier. They just have foam inside instead of air to stop them bouncing, and that makes them feel heavier. They're about 10 grams lighter than a regular ball.
He would have either retired early in his career or ironically enough, become a better player. Back then you couldn't just roll around and act like you'd been shot everytime there was contact. Refs and the public would have ignored it and he would have had to change his act and adjust his playing style accordingly.
In regards to Maradona, he's quite simply the best I ever saw. His passing, ball control, overall technique is unmatched by anyone not called Lionel Messi. But where Maradona takes the prize is in his leadership (when sober). He dragged the team with him as a collective. We all know about 86' but what he did winning those Scudetto's in a loaded Serie A' in the late 80's is nothing short of astonishing.
Well, Müller did it for 13 seasons(65/66 to 77/78), too.
Those are the club stats (domestic league, domestic cup, CL) for both:
Müller: 576 games, 515 goals (0.90 goals per match), 100 assists (0.17 assists per match)
Ronaldo: 853 games, 643 goals (0.75 goals per match), 222 assists (0.26 assists per match)
Those are their national team stats:
Müller: 62 games, 68 goals (1.10 goals per match), ??? assists (weren't counted for the national team back then)
Ronaldo: 167 games, 101 goals (0.60 goals per match), 40 assists (0.24 assists per match)
It's just amazing to me that stat guys always point at Messi's and Cristiano's stats, when they argue for them to be in the conversation for best of all time, while completely ignoring Müller.
This guy had at least equally impressive stats as them in an era, where defenders could commit murder on the pitch and where strikers didn't have the luxury of playing in perfectly oiled super-teams like Messi's Barca or Ronaldo's Madrid.
You make excellent points that I agree with until we get to this last bit here.
Muller played with some absolutely legendary Bayern teams and the likes of Sepp Maier, Uli Hoeness, Breitner and one Franz Beckenbauer. Those teams absolutely deserve to be talked about in the same level as Ronaldo's Madrid.
That's true, they won the CL 3 times in a row, too. But the gap between this legendary Bayern team and the rest of Europe or even the lower half of the Bundesliga wasn't as big as it has been for Real/Barca/Bayern and the rest of their leagues in recent years. Talent was much more evenly distributed back then. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that they would hammer half of their league.
In those days, world cup was an absolute pinnacle of world football. All football fans were eagerly waiting every 4 years for world cup. There were no live league football week in week out like now. Maradona was the ultimate superstar. Whole of football world was focus on Maradona during the WC86 and WC90.
It was not easy for him to play under such tremendous pressure. All the football greats play with great teams behind them but Maradona is the only player single handedly won the world Cup for Argentina.
The opponents usually only have Maradona to concern about and they put 3-4 players marking him alone with the instruction to get him by all means. Some of the tackles he endured was career ending in modern football.
Despite all these, he rose to the occasion and perform the best ever individual perform you will ever see in world cup in 1986.
His spirit, mental and physical strength was exemplary and will never ever be emulated by another individual again.
It was not easy for him to play under such tremendous pressure. All the football greats play with great teams behind them but Maradona is the only player single handedly won the world Cup for Argentina.
The opponents usually only have Maradona to concern about and they put 3-4 players marking him alone with the instruction to get him by all means. Some of the tackles he endured was career ending in modern football.
Despite all these, he rose to the occasion and perform the best ever individual perform you will ever see in world cup in 1986.
His spirit, mental and physical strength was exemplary and will never ever be emulated by another individual again.
Yeah, the claim that Messi's and Cristiano's stats are unprecedented is rubbish. There are quite a few players that put up similar numbers. Pele, Müller, Zico, Puskas, di Stefano, Eusebio, Romario, Bican, just to name a few. R9 looked like he could keep up such stats, too, before his injuries although he played in the Serie A which was incredibly hard for goal scorers.
Thing is, there are far less players who had the overall impact of Messi and (young) Cristiano and also maintained such great scorers per game. This is also why Müller is never considered among the greatest of the game and nobody has him as the best of his generation. That honor belongs to players like Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Best and Platini although their numbers were far less impressive. IMO, that's what's so mind blowing about Messi. You can argue that Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Best, Platini, Maradona etc. were equally good play makers and dribblers (in case of Maradona maybe even slightly better) but they had maybe half of his end product.
The ball's the same weight. It's more responsive now which helps with finishing, but the ball stays on the deck and is far easier to control because the pitches are so perfect. It was a lot harder to dribble and control the ball on 1980s pitches, when even a World Cup in Mexico was dry and bobbly, while most European winter seasons ended up in mudbaths.
Spooky timing for the resurrection of this thread 
Spooky timing for the resurrection of this thread
He seems to be fine and doing well thankfully
Not a hope it was easier to dribble back then . The ball wouldn't be that much heavier than now and he didn't play on carpet like pitches and in era where tackling is almost outlawed .
Maradona playing in the past 10 years would be unstoppable because the only way he could be stopped was by kicking lumps out of him
Hope he makes a full and speedy recovery. He must have had some birthday party.