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Diego Armando Maradona
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) review both the Everton and Bodø/Glimt victories at Old Trafford. Listen to the guys discuss 2 wins and 7 goals in the last week, analyse of the Amorim formation, focus on Amad and how he is playing, and also take a look at Hojlund, Rashford & Zirkzee – who starts v Arsenal?
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That is one piece of insane statistic.There were 23 fouls by Gentile on Maradona in that game (he was booked in the second half… and so was Maradona, funnily enough).
This also tells you a lot:
I don't like players being reduced to stats either but in case of the player Maradona is compared to most frequently - Lionel Messi - I think it is fair enough to point it out because the latter is easily the best of his generation at making productive plays that don't show up in scoring stats as well.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Maradona and every once in a while I go back to watching the highlight clips of him again but not despite but because of it I appreciate Messi even more because he combines those absolutely unreal plays with a football IQ that is beyond anything we've seen in the game. The more you think about it, the more absurd it becomes that Messi actually combines this allround play with all-time great scoring statistics. And the older I get, the more I appreciate the less obvious skills of a player like game reading, spatial awareness, off the ball movement etc. since they are probably the most decisive qualities a top player can have.
In terms of pure footballing ability, Maradona might surpass Messi. His technical qualities and artistry were out of this world. But Messi's productivity on top of being his equal in terms of dribbling and passing (at least if you go by effectiveness first and foremost) is absolutely mindblowing.
Great thread, I don't think us who weren't around to watch games 'live' (on a terrible tv) will ever appreciate how good he was. I'd say he probably had the best touch and best balance of anyone I've ever seen, kind of like Best.
Worth noting as I just went to Naples for the first time, he's practically a deity there. Literal shrines in every restaurant. It's insane.
Worth noting as I just went to Naples for the first time, he's practically a deity there. Literal shrines in every restaurant. It's insane.
On top of that the fouls Diego was receiving regularly would be red cards in the modern game, it really was brutal in that era. Skillful players especially good dribblers needed to be built differently mentally and physically
Loved watching The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino. Fantastic movie
I'm all for any Diego thread and mostly focus in vids and such. And to chat in consequence of some plays and actions involved in those, I've tried once, not many actually got it.
Yet I'm not as nostalgic as many people is, nor fixated "in my time", that BTW it's "Diego's time".
For all the critics towards nowadays fanboyism, there it's also quite a fest of old time fanboyism too (mild till now in this thread, hope it doesn't turn bad soon).
I don't agree with anyone with a tendency of going to extremes, or to "defend" certain player by not giving proper credit to another (and in the meantime trash a full period of the game and such).
So most of times I end quite annoyed with what I read and quite frankly? being Argie, an old fart, loving the game and knowing about its history from around the world (while not being from Europe), it gives a certain plattform that not in a snobish way, helps to not see Ferguson or Pep as perfect, while trying to name Zico and Platini evreytime I can.
So please mantein this thread in some sort of Archive of his vids, football and let's try to talk about them. I'm already tempted to reply to some pots that in order to defend Diego, do not properly assess current players either. Even if I get how annoying some of nowdays trends can be.
Some oldies, but great vids:
This one quite new
Yet I'm not as nostalgic as many people is, nor fixated "in my time", that BTW it's "Diego's time".
For all the critics towards nowadays fanboyism, there it's also quite a fest of old time fanboyism too (mild till now in this thread, hope it doesn't turn bad soon).
I don't agree with anyone with a tendency of going to extremes, or to "defend" certain player by not giving proper credit to another (and in the meantime trash a full period of the game and such).
So most of times I end quite annoyed with what I read and quite frankly? being Argie, an old fart, loving the game and knowing about its history from around the world (while not being from Europe), it gives a certain plattform that not in a snobish way, helps to not see Ferguson or Pep as perfect, while trying to name Zico and Platini evreytime I can.
So please mantein this thread in some sort of Archive of his vids, football and let's try to talk about them. I'm already tempted to reply to some pots that in order to defend Diego, do not properly assess current players either. Even if I get how annoying some of nowdays trends can be.
Some oldies, but great vids:
This one quite new
Great post.
I agree, yet we can add more names to that list, specially in the past, mostly Di Stefano (a fella that I found that sometimes it's not actually that well credited of how special he was), Eusebio, Zico, Platini...
Yet being nitpicking and as subjective as it is, I do not think that the ones chosen from the 2020 (bar Mbappe) trully have that level of aura and to an extent quality and special physical atributes to what I feel was your idea picking those names.
Kevin for instance, as fantastic as he can be, trully elite fella. I do not feel he belongs to this sort very very short list.
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When I visited Naples some years ago, I was of course very interested in the traces he left there.
Beside the shrines and graffitis, I was talking to the uncle of my host, who reported having seen him only once at the training court. But the glance in his eyes told it was like "I have really seen him, he existed, and I am his witness". He was an incarnation, that's what he was.
Beside the shrines and graffitis, I was talking to the uncle of my host, who reported having seen him only once at the training court. But the glance in his eyes told it was like "I have really seen him, he existed, and I am his witness". He was an incarnation, that's what he was.
In the 90's, I read The Hand of God, a biography of Maradona by Jimmy Burns. It's a fascinating read if you can still find it. Maradona was not about statistics, more a carefree cult figure and a larger than life personality. Looked at objectively, his overall career does not stack up against Messi. His life was complex and he didn't always make the best choices. But he was immensely watchable and at Mexico 86 he was phenomenal.
The 80's were different. They didn't demand the discipline that top class modern football requires. Maradona was of his time, as Robson was for us.
As a player, his touch and ball control were unmatched.
The 80's were different. They didn't demand the discipline that top class modern football requires. Maradona was of his time, as Robson was for us.
As a player, his touch and ball control were unmatched.
The premier league hasn’t had that type of player at all, the closest would be Henry or Suarez, Ronaldo was that level but only for a moment in this league. Apart from that you have too class players the likes of Keane Cantona De Bruyne but none of them could be compared to the names you mentioned.
We have to go back to the 60’s with Best and Charlton to truly mention geniuses that plied their trade in England while reaching the pinnacle of this sport, I feel Barnes could have been close if circumstances were different, no European ban and a more
suited national team for him to showcase his stuff but that’s it really. Serie A and La Liga were the choice for the true greats of this game.
You're forgetting George Best who also was one of Maradona's idols, and Bergkamp, but yeah, the quasi totality of those players never set a foot in England.
DANGER, rant below...
It's a very very subjective affair and I feel very nitpicking when I think of this kind of extremely short lists, it always feel extremely unfair, specially regarding the individual quality of so many players, leaving aside their carreers, the timing of it, periods, etc.
Instantly I would say that Stanley Matthews, Charlton and Best, belong to that very very short list and I might doubt with Rooney, feeling that it's totally unfair to him. At the end of the day, more than a Charlton vs Rooney in an individual (impossible) comparison, we are comparing their names in their times and this includes all sorts of extras that goes beyond the mere ability as footballers.
Also for me, it has to be an offensive player, no matter your name is Moore, Passarella or Maldini and how special and beyond their roles these type of fellas were. For instance Maldini, Baresi, would feel more important, with better carreers, while at the same time trully special in terms of their talent and ability beyond their roles, but they are not Baggio.
While when it comes to Germany, no one feels that can cast a shadow on Franz, but is it just because of the beyond extraordinary merits on every aspect from the Kaiser, or also because there was no Pele there and maybe Overath, Littbarski and others also somehow fell short of a Zico, Platini, Diego to dispute it. I think it's kind of a mixed bag.
That's why even a Keane, Redondo or Rikjaard sort of feels out of place. And even among the offensive ones, beyond extraordinary ones like Laudrup, Iniesta, Figo are no Pele.
And finally, when I think of someone that "could have been (even if we are not thinking on Pele terms)", that has many of the traits, approach, of the ones I preffer to put in those very short lists: meaning Futre would be closer than a Rui Costa, Hazard would be closer than a De Bruyne, Hoodle or Gazza would be closer than a Gerraard, not few times their carreers, timing of those, extras made them fall short, or not, but for some reason we would tend to judge them in those terms.
It's kind of opening a can of worns
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My biggest regret in life is not living in the timeline of a team managed by Jose Mourinho, that include both Diego Maradona and Mario Balotelli
I was enarmoed with clips of him as a 40 year old just messing around with a ball. He was proper quality but a shite professional which is a trait I value highly. I don't think it's unfair to take that factor into account when looking at something like Messi v Maradona or RonaldOG v Pele. Two guys who had it all in their career vs 2 guys of similar talent who could have had it all but didn't take care of themselves. Also why, even though I don't like the guy, CRonaldo deserves to be compared to those players.
His talent was such that it elevated teams to a moment of greatness but his problems kept him from being in constant championship contention. A character like Maradona is a double edged sword for a team.
His talent was such that it elevated teams to a moment of greatness but his problems kept him from being in constant championship contention. A character like Maradona is a double edged sword for a team.
Yep, Don Alfredo should be one the first names on the list. Also, while the premise of the original post is sound, a decade is too arbitrary and qualitatively irregular of a time-frame for meaningful greatest-of-all-time discussions. Honing in and whittling the list down to the most consequential, greatest-of-all-time footballers as well as genuine challengers and successors, while following the chronological order, would be more apt, and get rid of most of the noise (i.e., footballers who were selected exlusively due to the decade criterion, even though they were never truly part of the discussion and seem entirely out of place).
- Probably the foundational greatest-of-all-time footballer, in a global sense: Héctor Scarone
- The ones who dethroned Scarone as the greatest-of-all-time footballers, globally: Giuseppe Meazza and José Manuel Moreno
- The one who dethroned Meazza as the greatest-of-all-time footballer, on the European front: Ferenc Puskás
- The one who dethroned Meazza and Moreno as the greatest-of-all-time footballer, globally: Alfredo Di Stéfano
- The one who dethroned Di Stéfano as the greatest-of-all-time footballer, globally: Pelé
- The ones who dethroned Puskás as the greatest-of-all-time footballers, on the European front: Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff
- The one who challenged Pelé as the greatest-of-all-time footballer, globally: Diego Maradona
- The one who challenged and perhaps replaced Beckenbauer and Cruyff as the greatest-of-all-time footballer, on the European front: Cristiano Ronaldo
- The one who dethroned Pelé after half a century (or Maradona after three decades) as the greatest-of-all-time footballer, globally: Lionel Messi
I think with Diego the "ifs" are:
1. What we could have enjoyed if it wasn't for that awuful injury he had, he won everything after it, but he changed his game and worse triggerred even more his adictions.
2. What we could have enjoy if he didn't indulged himself in so many over the top social "activities" to have a longer carreer.
Yet at the same time, his body was malleable as few, he recovered or trained hard as nails when he was focus and on contrair to what his trophy haul speaks, he always had his teams on contention for the title: from the very small club Argentinos Jrs was and is, passing through Boca, Barca and Napoli, he almost always where in the title contention, not winning more wasn't that much related to his off pitch lifestyle. It was more related to injuries and having a Team playing as the term implies or even happening this, not being as great as other teams he was fighting against.
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Both songs from Man Utd Chao for Diego are the best, the one with Mano Negra encapsulates the electricity that he generated in the pitch
I often try to imagine the carnage Maradona would cause in today's game, playing on carpet pitches and with the protection attacking players now get (correctly) from referees.
Platini was better.
Nearly signed for Sheff Utd when he was 17 for 200,000 in the 1970s but they doubled the price at the last minute to 400k and ended up at Napoli instead
Watching clips of him just seems unreal. I managed to find a game of his against Empoli and he took a lot of punishment but still couldn't be stopped.
Partly true, he didn't join Napoli in the 70s though. Sheffield United scouted him when he was a teenager but thought he was too expensive and he carried on at Argentinos Juniors
I’m pretty sure that by most accounts he did it globally, before Di Stéfano (counterintuitively an older player) got just ahead of him during their time at Madrid.
He didn’t sign for Napoli until 1984 at the age of 24. He was at Argentinos Juniors until the age of 21.
True. But it was only for a while, so, for the sake of brevity, I decided to skip that step and go straight to Di Stéfano. Similar to Meazza and Moreno from the previous eras, in a way. The former had a greatest-of-all-time profile by 1938-ish (beyond this point he played no international football and was clearly past his best at club level). The latter, on the other hand, was just getting started (with the rise to prominence of La Máquina and winning both of his South American Championship titles in the 1940s).
Its true that Maradona never had a star supporting cast like Pelé and Messi. But wasn´t both the Argentina and Napoli teams built around getting the best out of Maradona? When you have the best player in the world(who is also in contention for the best ever), you are always going to build you tactics around letting that player influence the game as much as possible.
Yeah sorry just the way I worded it.
The key takeaway from my post is that he could have been playing for Sheff Utd!
This is speculation, so we'll never know, but the evidence we have suggests that this is false. Pele never failed in any aspect of his career. First World Cup? Champion. First (and only) Copa America? Top scorer. Last World Cup? Champion. Club career? With an ever evolving cast of teammates, a never ending parade of success, in South America and in Europe (intercontinental cups). The only thing that stopped him (like in WC 62 and 66) was injury.
When I say he never failed, obviously I don't mean that he never lost games or whatever, but he never had stuff like Messi not scoring in 6/7 straight international finals or like Maradona being booted out of World Cups for PEDs and periods of extended mid play.
Further, if Maradona is going to do what Messi did in 2010, he'd be best advised to knock the cocaine on the head, cos that ain't gonna work in 21st century football.
Love all three players by the way, and they're obviously the three greatest of all time.
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Boca Juniors surely? Didn't he join Napoli from Barca?
I think Messi and Ronaldo have both benefitted from not drinking alcohol. Maradona achieved everything he did while being saddled with crippling addictions. I wonder what his top level would have been if he had modern sports science to boost him?
Messi has a much better case for the all time crown now but am still adamant he never quite reached the summit of footballing brilliance the way Maradona did best demonstrated by the 86 tournament.
Calling teams a one man show is most of the time at best exaggeration and at worst ignorant but I'd say at his best he came closest than anyone ever to making such a statement true.
Calling teams a one man show is most of the time at best exaggeration and at worst ignorant but I'd say at his best he came closest than anyone ever to making such a statement true.
Maybe it's the lack of hindsight as we're still in it's midst but there's something awfully underwhelming about the 2020 list.
Here's hoping it'll get better.
See above
You can have a debate on who the GOAT is, but there is not debate who the GOD is!
Napoli not so much (could have been better since the very begginning), YNT 79 and WC 86, certainly.
People till this day doesn't get that the first objective when one of this players fall into your team, it's to HAVE a team, functioning like the term implies.
This team must use that Genius properly, sometimes more like the cherrie on the top, or diff maker for moments, others like a more mature and leader figure. Main task? involving him in a proper manner, giving the ball the most that you can and with advantage the most that you can. While the rest of the team playing properly when he is not directly involved.
If this stuff doesn't happen, this very special players might save you for moments, even a tournament but with a great deal of timing involved (for not using luck).
It's extremely hard in a team sport to cross the final line with a trophy, or better said, having great perfomances even if not winning; when you do not properly assess your better aspects and your worse ones.
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I get the point, to an extent I can agree, yet it's simply not true, not only because of loosing matches, loosing titles, having bad games, the thing it's that having an ubber nitpicking approach like today happens, he would had faced way more critics (that BTW he had in his days too).
Him and his carreer as a package, can obviuosly produce a reflection like the one you've said, but not when is properly analyzed (or even not properly, when doing it with that very social media quote of malice, like modern players have to deal with), sthg similar happens with Jordan in some aspects.
In a personal note, recently I'm really annoyed that it seems that people simply do not get give any credit to players from the past, even if it's freaking Pele, but it also bothers this kind of extreme view, that does not help either and sometimes ends feeding the trolls from the other side that are the ones actually being wrong.
In many ways, not only with Pele, but with many older players, if we put under the microscope their carreers, every single match like it happens today (stupid social media included), those that think that they played like pub players will open their eyes and witness their mistake, but there would be also there to be seen the normal "flaws" every player had in their carreers that sometimes seems thata didn't exist when some players become the level of a Myth Pele (deservly) receives.
There is no fecking question about what Pele meant to Brazil and football, he is the very first Global Superstar, he is the symbol of what Brazil became in football and the icon of that turning point...yet perfect carreer? behaviour? perfomances? to such extreme, nope.
PD:
Back on Diego, more than simply supporting cast, his timing wasn't the best that he could have. From his origins, to his enviroments in general durind his carreer, to his birth club, injuries and even his size (the REAL flea).
He was perhaps the one that had to deal with more challenges to overcome. Maybe there relies a great portion of his "me against all" character that also made him so appealing to watch combine with his style and talent.
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Don't think most modern fans understand that the introduction of the back pass rule which came in for 92/93 season completely changed the game.
Maradona would have been even more unplayable in the modern game with the tackle from behind banned and with modern pressing systems. Basically comparing eras by using goals and stats is not going to give you an idea of who is better.
Di Stefano, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Messi are probably the cream of the crop and all legends.
Maradona would have been even more unplayable in the modern game with the tackle from behind banned and with modern pressing systems. Basically comparing eras by using goals and stats is not going to give you an idea of who is better.
Di Stefano, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona, Messi are probably the cream of the crop and all legends.
Agree. Unfortunately, the game has gone in that direction over the last 10 years. Mbappe would have stood apart had he not wasted his time with PSG. Haaland may end up bettering him in stats but he'll be seen more of a Lewandowsi than a Pele or Maradona. As of now, there are no deserving contenders.