[Paul_NL]

Lionel Messi

Born: 24 - 6 - 1987

Prices won:

With Argentina National Team:

FIFA U-20 World Cup: 2005

With FC Barcelona:

La Liga: 2004-05, 2005-06
UEFA Champions League: 2005-06
Supercopa de España: 2005, 2006

Personal Honours:

Golden Ball: FIFA U-20 World Cup 2005
Golden Boot: FIFA U-20 World Cup 2005
Golden Boy: 2005
Olimpia de Plata: Argentinian player of the year 2005
2006 [FIFPro World Young Player of the Year]

Diego

Born: 30-10-1960

1979 Golden Ball for Best Player of the FIFA U-20 World Cup
1979 Argentine league Top Scorer
1979 Argentine Football Writers' Footballer of the Year
1979 South American Footballer of the Year (El Mundo, Caracas)

Clearly Messi is superior to Diego now

[Teso Dos Bichos]

Clearly? I think not.

[Paul_NL]

Originally Posted by Teso Dos Bichos

Clearly? I think not.

Interesting, you have an opinion as well?

[Teso Dos Bichos]

I could explain further but considering you made the school boy error of basing everyone on achievements, I fear I would be completely wasting my time.

[Miran Klosnic]

Why is Messi above Diego? Because he plays for Barcelona? I don't think so. Both a world class players but Diego has far more experience and is more consistent.The only thing Messi has an advantage is his pace.

[lanman]

You've missed out two pretty important facts.

1 - Messi plays on a great Barcelona side, where others can cover any poor games he has. Maradona played for Argentinos Juniors, who are a side (at the time) you would liken to a Middlesbrough or a Fulham.

2 - Messi has played 39 league games in his career, scoring 14 goals. At the same age Maradona had played 167 games and scored 116 goals

[Dr. Know]

Originally Posted by Miran Klosnic

Why is Messi above Diego? Because he plays for Barcelona? I don't think so. Both a world class players but Diego has far more experience and is more consistent.The only thing Messi has an advantage is his pace.

Wrong Diego .

But that Diego was far from consistent during his time at Porto which was where he played when he has Messi's age.

And I certainly don't know how he has "far more experience" than Messi. They have more or less similar NT experience and as far as club it's debatable. Messi has more CL experience and has won more things with his club while Diego has played in more leagues.

[Paul_NL]

Originally Posted by Dr. Know

Wrong Diego .

But that Diego was far from consistent during his time at Porto which was where he played when he has Messi's age.

And I certainly don't know how he has "far more experience" than Messi. They have more or less similar NT experience and as far as club it's debatable. Messi has more CL experience and has won more things with his club while Diego has played in more leagues.

Diego only played in the Argentinian league.

Players you can compare with there same age and so far Messi is far ahead of Diego. He was won more and proven more

[Naughty by Nature]

^ Its Diego the brazilian from Werder Bremen not Diego Maradona.

[lanman]

Originally Posted by Paul_NL

Diego only played in the Argentinian league.

I would say that 150 games and over 100 goals in Argentina is worth at least as much as 40 in Spain. Let's not forget that a good deal of the 78 World CUp winning team still played in the country and it is long before foreign clubs started signing fringe players from South America. The league was a lot stronger 30 years ago than it is now.

He was won more and proven more

Maradona played for a team that were prety much a non-entity in terms of their history (who had won nothing of note) and turned them into title contenders. Messi plays for one of the best teams in the world so of course he will have won more.

The season in which Maradona turned 20 (which is comparable to this year for Messi) saw a record of 43 goals in 45 games. Go and look up Messi's stats for this past year and compare.

Maradona's international record of games played at the age of 19 was 8 games and 5 goals. Again, go and look at what Messi has achieved for Argentina since the World Cup and compare.

It's also worth noting that Messi has missed substantial time on more than one occassion due to injury, whereas Maradona was playing regularly almost throughout his teens.