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Soccer followers are lucky to dwell in a time when two superstars are concurrently making the declare to be the most effective participant within the historical past of the game – and extra lucky nonetheless that we will watch the competition between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo play out, week in and week out, dwell earlier than a world viewers of billions. Thanks to YouTube, I can watch high-quality movies of their most compelling performances, and of each aim they’ve ever scored.
When Diego Maradona was staking his declare to the title of finest ever, a lot of the world may solely get a quadrennial glimpse of his genius, when he turned out for Argentina within the ’82, ’86, ’90 and ’94 World Cups. Growing up in India throughout that interval, I by no means noticed highlights of his performances for FC Barcelona or Napoli (a metropolis the place he is nonetheless considered half deity, half royalty).
There are actually some video highlights on-line that protect a grainy file of him in his pomp – together with THAT aim in opposition to England within the Azteca Stadium on June 22, 1986. But these solely trace at what he was able to. They do not represent adequate supporting proof to the argument that he was the most effective ever.
What makes it more durable nonetheless is the even scarcer proof for claimants of earlier generations: Hungary’s Ferenc Puskas, Spain and Argentina’s Alfredo di Stefano, Brazil’s Pele, the Dutchman Johan Cruyff, Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, et al. That they performed beneath completely different situations and guidelines, and in numerous positions, makes the argument moot, anyway.
We cannot, then, know if Maradona was technically the most effective to have kicked a ball.
Nevertheless, I’m right here to argue that he was the best of all time. And my case rests on the easy incontrovertible fact that he, greater than all the opposite claimants named right here, got here closest to defying the dictum that soccer is a workforce sport.
For most of his profession, Maradona performed in groups that lacked every other world-beating gamers. Run your eye down the listing of the Napoli squad with which he conquered Italian soccer in 1986-87, and there’s not a single different participant who would make it to a Serie A corridor of fame. He had a barely higher supporting forged within the Argentina sides that he took to 2 World Cup finals – profitable it in ’86, and coming agonizingly shut in ’90 – however no one would argue that Jorge Valdano was to Maradona what, say, Jairzinho was to Pele in ’70.
It is one factor to be a superb participant surrounded by different sensible gamers; on this regard Messi and Ronaldo have been exceptionally lucky with their membership groups. But Maradona made magic out of mediocre supplies.
What makes this much more outstanding is the load of expectation he carried on his diminutive body. When he signed for Napoli in 1984, the membership had by no means received the Italian league, and but its followers instantly started to dream of championship glory. The “pibe de oro,” or golden boy, was as a lot talisman as captain and participant.
Other footballers – Messi amongst them – have since had to deal with comparable stress, however trendy superstars are surrounded by a scaffolding of public relations professionals and psychiatrists to assist them. Maradona, missing help off the sector as he did on it, nonetheless delivered the “oro” for membership and nation over and over once more.
Promoted
Until he did not. It was most likely inevitable that the burdens of his genius would finally crush him, and they did so in spectacular trend. But he withstood them lengthy sufficient to forged in bronze – just like the plaque commemorating THAT aim outdoors the Azteca Stadium – his declare to being the best of all time.
RIP, Diego Armando Maradona, GOAT.
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