Competitive internationals:
Messi: 47 goals in 114 games or 1 goal every 2.4 games
Maradona: 17 goals in 46 games or 1 goal every 2.7 games
A difference of only 0.3, despite Maradona playing in an era of fewer goals, backpass rule and rougher tackles.
So now friendlies don't matter out of a sudden? Or are you trying to argue that Maradona was in fact a better goalscorer than Messi who is arguably the greatest goalscorer of all-time while also being one of the best playmakers/having the highest amount of recorded assists in football history?
You also forgot that Messi's teammates were far better goalscorer's than those of Maradona.
Also are we conveniently going to forget that football during Messi's era was/is superior to that of Maradona's era in almost every single way? Tactically, physically and in terms of the average footballer's own level.
Serie A was stacked in the 80s, Platini only won 2 Serie A titles with a great Juve team... Dybala had won 5 Serie A titles, while never being considered not even top 5 player in the world.
There is an abysmal difference in quality between top teams and medium/smaller teams nowadays, all because of Bosman ruling.
It's easier to stad padd nowadays, if you play for the elite teams.
You are stating the obvious here and I did not claim otherwise.
However the point remains the same. Elkjaer and Verona won 1 less scudetti in that incredibly stacked era with a team (Hellas Verona) that was far worse (on paper) than Napoli's Maradona teams. Not to mention that Maradona was the far superior player to Elkjaer.
I was just opposing the "Napoli were complete and utter scrubs and it was an absolute miracle that Maradona won 2 scudetti with Napoli alone" kind of rhetoric.
Rest we agree with (stat padding).
Yeah I understand. I was too young to watch Maradona. I think it's one of those things where you had to be a spectator of that era to appreciate what kind of player he was. Opinon differs though. I have a friend who used to watch the busby babes and later he watched Maradona too and thought he was very overrated due to his lack of consistency. Of course that's just his opinon. I know feck all about how Maradona played on a match to match basis, but since it was between him and Pelé mostly before Messi came along, he must have been something special.
No doubt about that. Hence my comments about Maradona being the most similar player that I have seen clips/matches of to Messi (to date) which speaks for itself about how great a football talent he must have been. I mean he is widely recognized as being one of the greatest footballers of all-time (top 3 almost always) so there is that. Messi is in the same conversation almost always. Anyway if Messi wins the World Cup with Argentina this year (doubtful), I don't think that this will make him a better or worse player. His legacy will be even bigger because this is the only trophy that he lacks, but his legacy is already "made" IMO.
