Day -883. WorldCup2018.
I cannot resist one more mention of the great Diego Armando Maradona, brought on by Lionel Messi being named Fifa's Ballon d'Or winner yesterday. But I see my mention of Maradona as an education for today's youth. As my elders spoke about Pele, Cryuff and Beckanbauer then so do I have my heroes, my childhood idols who made the game beautiful. For Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar I give you Maradona, Platini, Zico.
I will never doubt the amazing talent of Messi. He really is quite incredible. The argument I return to many a time though is that he has never performed to the best of his ability for Argentina. The experts (oh, the experts) cite the amazing Barcelona team that he is a part of and how he is surrounded by comparative mediocrity when he plays for Argentina. Well, guess what, you modern football supporter. There was no other great player on the World Cup winning Argentina team of 1986. Valdano and Burrachaga were decent and had relatively successful club careers but Maradona made them look good. He took control of that team and inspired everybody around him. And even more than that he played in Italy for Napoli, where he pretty much made the rest of the team look like world beaters. Maradona was World Champion and Italian Champion, the rest of the players on both teams were lucky enough to be along with him for the ride.
So, young folk, take this as an example of the genius who existed a generation before Messi. This is Argentina-Belgium, World Cup semi-final, 1986. In the quarter final against England Maradona had scored one of the greatest goals ever after one of the most controversial goals ever. He was not done. Belgium had no chance when he was in this mood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STqc3mZ5DzQ
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