Here's a question for you @cruz - Maradona or Messi? Who is the greater in Argentinian eyes? Talent wise and achievement?
Will take some explaining. More along the lines of a couple of random thoughts without a congruent line. Just read. I'll try to give you a bit of both sides of the coin. Here it goes. Most Argentines would say Maradona. For me? Messi. Messi might be favoured a bit more by younger people, Maradona overwhelmingly more popular among older people.
My take. Raw talent-wise, Messi. Messi on his best day is better than Maradona was on his best day and Messi on his average day is/was better than Maradona on his average day. One of the differences is Maradona had his best at a world cup. Some might say that is a trait in itself, rising to the occasion, etc. In this day and age, saying that a person that has won several Champions leagues chokes is a hard sell imo. Is there more level in a world cup than in a champions league? I don't think so, I believe they are pretty even. Was Spain stronger than Barcelona? Was Germany Stronger than Bayern? I think the stage in terms of pressure and level is quite the same.
On that point:...Final Argentina vs Germany 2014: we had 2 crystal clear changes during the 90 min. You could argue Germany played better, but we created the best chances. Both of our forwards made silly decisions/executions of those chances. Had any of those gone in, I think a huge part of this argument would have been settled. Woulda, shoulda, coulda, I know. But to judge a player's place in history based on that sounds harsh, very harsh.
Maradona had 2 things going for him. He was a natural leader, Messi is not. Maradona had an aura of invincibility that was contagious. Having him on the field even on a bad day was a huge asset. On his worst day there were three opposing players distracted by his every move. You could argue the Barcelona players felt the same, as Messi did his talking with the boots. Maybe, but I am willing to concede on this front. I've never heard his teammates praise his leadership. When Messi is having a bad day, he doesn't even ask for the ball. Maradona would chop his leg before he did that. He made a mess, but he would never avoid the spotlight. It was his and only his, win or lose.
Countless of Maradona's teammates have talked about how he took the pressure off them, both on and off the pitch. Facing opponents and journalists. Tons of evidence. There is an argument to be made about Maradona making his teammates better.
The other one was the opposition. You could argue defenders are faster, stronger, tactically smarter today, and you'd be probably right. But the level of violence skilled players had to face back then was a different animal. The protection, for the lack of a better word, messi has is very different. From the game, the refs, the audience, etc. Someone going to break him is just unacceptable these days. He ruins the game for everyone. Everyone. That sort of violence was not only acceptable back then, it was expected.
On the other hand, I've heard quite a few defenders (Rio Ferdinand to name one) saying things along the lines of "it's not as if we don't try to foul him, we cant catch him".
Maradona's fame revolves a LOT around Napoli. Part of it is justified, part of it is just fantastic storytelling based on lies. The justified part was that Juve/Milan/Inter were monstrous teams that had always won everything and had tremendous line ups. It was also true that Napoli had never won anything. He came in, told everyone he'd change things and he did.
What is not true, is this fantasy that Napoli was basically a handcart with 10 dead horses who couldn't kick a ball and that Maradona carried them on his shoulders. Napoli had (besides Maradona), two Brazilian internationals (Careca and Alemao) and 5 members of the Italian national team. That means it had 8 national team members of Ita/Bra/Arg at the time. Hardly an average team.
One thing a lof of Maradona fans mention is that Maradona had more flair, that his playstyle was much more pleasant to the eye and that he was more resourceful. I disagree. I fundamentally disagree with that. What I do notice is the following, bit technical but will try to keep it simple. In football, you have what we call "lujos" literally luxuries. They are generally unorthodox moves that are crowd-pleasers but don't necessarily add to the scoreboard/gameplay. Two examples: First, imagine someone centres the ball to you. You could simply head the ball to score, or reposition yourself and do a spectacular overhead kick and score. Both are worth one goal. One is spectacular, the other is not. Second example: imagine you are rushed by a defender. You have the time to pass it to a teammate, but you chose to nutmeg the opponent, going backwards gaining nothing. But the crowd loves it. This might sound silly, but the use of the arms is a big tell.
Messi does very, very little of that. Let me explain: Messi does have and does use all of those resources. He can and has done all that. But he uses them in a strategically smart way. He uses a nutmeg to get out of a situation where no simple pass was available, not to humiliate the defender not to please the crowd. 100%. He uses an overhead kick when he is situated in a position where he cant score using his head. He never does things for the sake of doing them. He uses them for a purpose. Fans, on average, prefer more Maradona's way on this. Messi is more 'efficient' in this sense.
Considering all, if my life depended on it and I had to pick 11 players Messi would be my first pick. His combination of accuracy, speed, technique and decision making is out of this world. I've never, ever thought I would see someone as good as him on 1v1 from a standstill position. If you could face yourself 1v1, from a standstill position, yourself defending would win the overwhelming majority of times. The attacker has first touch but the defender has an extra meter, he can slide, and his job is to destroy, not to create. He wins most, from positions he shouldn't. I am not talking about getting someone off foot throwing the ball long and outrunning him. No. Ball standing still, defender picking his position, facing him, and losing, again and again and again. Hist first two touches and his acceleration are incredible.
I generally watch sports for two reasons: the beauty of the game and/or to follow my team. I couldn't give a flying turd if Barcelona won or loss. But the beauty he (and busquets, xavi, inisesta et al) created was something that hooked me to the screen like no other team (other than the ones I support) had done. I went out of my way to watch Barcelona's games even though I couldn't care less about the result.
On the other hand, from a storytelling point of view, I can see how Maradona's is a much more compelling and entertaining story. The guy walks into a room and the time stops. He went against anyone and everyone, fought all he thought worth fighting for (even when I stand opposed to those values), lost some, but one quite a few too. He treated empherors and begars just the same. He's dinner with silver crockery and found a bite from a garbage can when he was dirt **** poor.
What I genuinely do not understand is the CR vs Messi debate. I can understand Marcelo, Sergio Ramos and Zidane, defending CR, but I can't recall a single "great" player that didn't have some sort of allegiance to either (to eliminate bias) saying CR was the best. It fascinated me for a while.
I can recall quite a few Manchester United players (Rooney, Keane, Scholes) saying Messi was the best. Mourinho called Messi a god after he left RM.
I can't think of a single Barcelona or former Barcelona player saying CR was the best ever.
I know this will come across as incredibly arrogant, but the minute someone says something like that, I spend 1 minute trying to figure out whether he is making a point or whether he actually believes that. If he is making a point (defining his colors or something) i wont care, I'll let it slide, nothing happened. But if I think he genuinely believes that, I unequivocally lose interest in the conversation. It'd be like talking about football with someone who doesn't understand the most basic rules.
