Okay would you describe it as being one of his more productive performances for Napoli (it was after all a hat trick to rival the best of them and great all round play)
It was considered a magnificent performance and undoubtedly one of his best at his home stadium at the San Paolo.
Sorry if I unearth this but I couldn’t resist... I have completely the opposite view. He’s ranked too high at 5th place on the back of largely his exploits in the state league. A league in which can’t be compared with other candidates on the continent and the rest of top flight world football. I still can’t believe how some people buy into this argument to strengthen his case. It’s not a professional league (taking away the top 4 sides) and the rest were mostly amateurs. It’s like in Italy the “Eccellenza” regional competitions, a 5th level tier to reach promotion to Série D. The fact that these top sides could beat on these minnows offsets any meritorious recognition in my view. In the real first division of Brazilian Série A (Brasilerao) he only featured in 8 league matches in which the club was eliminated in the 3rd group stages. As for the NT merits, it’s the opposite I feel: any chance of Brazil winning a title was largely handicapped once he foolishly got sent off in Buenos Aires. In any event it was not a tournament taken seriously by many of the federations around the continent. The friendlies don’t warrant enough merits for him to be bumped up into higher rankings in my view. In conclusion, most of his arguments have always been based on what was transpiring in a state league — a league which is incomparable to any top flight professional league around the world. Any comparisons made with other contenders that were playing always against pros is simply disrespectful and out of line and does a disservice to them.
@Vegan10 @PuckVanHeel @PDG1978 Correct me if I’m wrong but the comp below contains extremely rare footage of Diego maradona 1984/85 that isn’t accessible on YouTube/daily motion This is the maradona i always wanted to see i remember @Pipiolo a few years ago saying that in his first season he did outrageous things with ball that have yet to be matched Here he was still Explosive,agile,inventive really it’s a shame he finished with no trophies that season 6:28-7:20 No wonder why platini said what a very gifted player like zidane could do with a ball maradona could do with an orange(it’s not an exaggeration at all) Just briefly I have a last question: During the relevant time period 82-84 did people actually think that platini had surpassed maradona as a player Even with all the trophies platini won in the aforementioned period I find it hard to believe the perception could’ve been he was a superior footballer(more accomplished yes in terms of club trophies)
I reckon the number of people who followed both the Serie A and the Argentinian league to be pretty low. Probably only a few journalists who might have been able to make an actual call.