Despite the unique “personality” of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, the star of the current generation, Lionel Messi, is “the best player ever,” according to an article published on Financial Times Explain the reasons why Messi deserves this title.
Simon Cooper wrote, in his article published before Argentina coronation Led by Messi at the World Cup in Qatar after an exciting match on Sunday, he said that even “if Messi fails to win the tournament,” it will not diminish the idea that he is the greatest football player ever.
He points out that two elements make “any sports legend”, namely “brilliance and personality.” While Messi possessed brilliance, he lacked personality, which is an advantage that Maradona enjoyed.
He explains this by saying that Messi “plays like a Beatle while dressed as an accountant”.
And while Maradona expressed his personality on the field, Messi did not do so, seeking to prove his competence without “unnecessary deception or boasting.”
Since the beginning of his career he has chased individual feats in terms of goals and trophies, and at the Camp Nou his routine has been to shine for Barcelona, then to drive the 25-minute drive home on the near-empty motorway in the middle of the night to his regular home in the small town of Castelldefels.
Messi is superior to Maradona, according to the Messi vs Ronaldo application, as he has 791 goals in his career, with an average of 0.79 per match, while Ronaldo has 819 goals, with an average of only 0.72. Even excluding penalties, Messi is ahead of Ronaldo. He also averages 0.35 assists per game, compared to 0.2 for Ronaldo.
The writer also notes that Maradona played only two matches in the World Cup after reaching the age of thirty (in the 1994 tournament), while Messi, who holds the record for the best player in the world, rediscovered himself in middle age.
And he mentions the second goal he made for his colleague Julian Alvarez against Croatia in the World Cup semi-finals in Qatar, when he dodged Josko Gvardiol, 20, and because he lacked the speed to take the ball away, he had to dodge him again, and as soon as he reached the penalty area, Alvarez was awarded Target.
Messi now spends the bulk of matches walking around the pitch, “sacrificing his energy for the most difficult thing in football: the moment to break an open defence.” “He knows how to take advantage of the slightest opportunity, the slightest movement,” said Javier Pastore, his former teammate in the “Tango” team.
What Messi lacks is personality, unlike Maradona, who grew up in a poor suburb of the Argentine capital and was steeped in Argentine traditions.
For example, in the 1986 tournament, Maradona saw England’s semi-final defeat as revenge for the Falkland War four years earlier, when, he said, British soldiers killed Argentine recruits “like little birds”.
As for Messi, who moved to Barcelona at the age of 13, he embodies “a different Argentina, the Argentina of the generation that fled the country’s economic collapse.” Messi grew up “almost outside of society, as he is a joint product of the Barcelona family and academy, and he may not live in Argentina again.”
But personality “doesn’t make Maradona the greatest soccer player,” according to the writer, who referred to a statement by Maradona himself when asked in 2014: “Does Lionel Messi need to win the World Cup to be the best?” To reply: “What? No. It has nothing to do with that.” The thing is. Don’t confuse the two… the World Cup won’t take away anything he’s done.” According to the book “Diego Maradona: The Last Interview and Other Conversations”
And he says that Maradona was referring to knockout tournaments in which luck plays a big role, and for example, it might have been different if the referee had corrected the goal that Maradona scored with his hand against England in 1986, or Gonzalo Higuain, Messi’s colleague in the 2014 final, could, To score alone against the German goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer. If this scenario had occurred, perhaps it could be said that Messi has already surpassed Maradona.
The writer says: “The claim that Maradona was the greatest leader is wrong. Messi is a different kind of leader. A good player takes responsibility for his performance. Messi takes responsibility for the result.”
He adds that Argentina “needed him to beat France. He feels the burden, and he accepts it. He is appreciated by his fellow Argentines, who traveled from all over the world to attend his birthday party.”
And the writer says that, regardless of Sunday’s result, Messi is “the greatest, perhaps of all time.”