You've made some good points here but I believe these games against Chelsea 11/12 and Inter 09/10 are the kind of games that Maradona would solve in some other way. The point I was making initially was that Messi is an extremely repetitive, predictable and robotic system player. Despite this, I consider Messi superior to Maradona for his consistency, longevity and achievements.
Except if Maradona plays in this era, he'd be a walking 20/20 player (at least 20 goals and 20 assists player) assuming he can make himself palatable to the elite managers (an underrated aspect of the modern game, imo). You drop peak Maradona into Real Madrid and he's at least as good as Modric. You drop him into Pep's Man City and he is at least as good as KDB. You drop him into Klopp's Liverpool and he is at least as good as Salah, although the goals/assists numbers are probably inverted. Unironically, the best team for Maradona in June 2023 is possibly Arteta's Arsenal where if he replaces Odegaard, he could power Arsenal to EPL and UCL success with ridiculous stats too.
Isn't the inverse true though? Maradona might (emphasis on might as it is based purely on belief) be capable of producing a moment of magic that would unlock against Chelsea in 11/12 and Inter 09/10 (I would throw in Chelsea 08/09 too where it took an Iniesta wonder goal to win) but then Maradona is unlikely to produce the level of consistency that Messi have. Now, that level of consistency is not unimportant. When Barcelona only beat Madrid by 3-4 points in the league, Maradona's relative lack of consistency compared to Messi may have cost Barcelona the titles. It is also not clear at all that Maradona's ability to reach higher heights in one UCL campaign (say 10/10) is worth more than Messi's ability to maintain 9.5/10 campaigns for almost a decade with different teammates. There is a reason many managers view players greatness through the lens of consistency and that is mainly because if you are in the business of winning, not only to build legacy but just to save your job, then consistency is king. Lastly, despite the narrative, most big games aren't actually decided by moments of magic. Being, as you said, "repetitive, predictable and robotic system" is not a vice, per se. The most dominant teams in the history of the game is not built on magic, unfortunately. You dominate systematically, not individually (except maybe if you go all the way back to like the 50s/60s era). So in fact, the highest highs are achieved not by having the highest peak player (Maradona) but by having the best system player (Messi).
I agree 100% and that's exactly my point why I put Messi (and also Cristiano) above Maradona Edit: Although Cristiano was consistent, he wasn't as predictable due to his huge variety of dribbling, passing and finishing with any part of his body and from anywhere on the pitch. He was a player capable of adapting to any situation regardless of teammates, tactics, coaches, opponents, etc...
First he would have to pass the doping test if you know what I mean. Afterwards, he would have to adapt to modern football that extinguished the classic number 10. The player with creative freedom. You see players like Özil going to the Turkish league so soon because of this tactical evolution. I think Maradona couldn't handle playing in Klopp's gegenpressing at Liverpool. Even in the Man city in place of KDB he would have to have a defensive commitment to make Guardiola's lose-press. Modric is the typical modern number 10. I don't know if Maradona would adapt to that precisely because of his lack of defensive contribution.
Yes he's overrated. He was extremely skilful but his lack of discipline was disgraceful especially at Napoli, going on 4 day cocaine binges from Sunday night to Wednesday and then training 3 days to get fit. How can you be considered one of the greats when you abuse your body like that? Nearly 40% of his goals came from the penalty spot at Napoli. The 1986 performance was great but that was his only good international tournament. He is lauded as a one man army and I agree both Napoli and Argentina wouldn't have won anything without him but he didn't play with a bunch of no hopers. Napoli strengthened their squad year by year and were no inferior to Milan, Inter and Juventus from the mid 80s - 1990. Likewise Argentina had a well balanced squad in both 1986 and 1990. I would put Pele, Messi, Cristiano and Cruyff comfortably ahead of him, maybe even Platini.
Are we talking about football or personality off the field? I agree with you that Maradona's character was not really acceptable in many ways, but the impact he had on Napoli is unrepeatable. Napoli before Maradona was clearly a weak team and everyone saw what this team did with Maradona's arrival 2 Series A championships 1 UEFA Championship and 1 Coppa Italia Championship It is definitely an exceptional performance for a team that won its last prestigious trophy 25 years ago In all the seasons that Maradona played in Napoli until the 1990 World Cup, he was in the worst position among the top 3 players in world There is no player in history who is better at magic moves with the ball than Maradona
His drug taking and abuse ruined his body and performance on the pitch, from 1988 onwards he had gained considerable weight and couldn't explode past defenders any more and that was his own fault, compare that to Cruyff who was still leaving defenders behind aged 36. Yes his achievements at Napoli were great but he was not surrounded by average or poor players like lazy journalism states. Napoli paid a world record fee for him, they were not paupers and they strengthened their squad year by year, I guess a modern day Liverpool team would be an apt comparison rather than West Ham. Cruyff put Ajax and Dutch football as a whole on the map, they were nowhere before. Likewise Pele did the same for Santos and Brazil (to a lesser extent). In terms of magic moves with the ball, I agree he was absolute magic but there are things I have seen Ronaldinho and Ronaldo9 do that Maradona could never. In fact I would say Ronaldinho could do anything that Maradona could with the ball and more. Maradona was a great player and achieved quite a lot but should've done better, a bit like the Mike Tyson of football.
Can you show me a video clip of a defender driving a long fast 50 yard ball forward to Ronaldinho, who while being marked by a defender traps the ball with his chest in such a way he instantaneously transitions to a second touch with his foot to flick the ball up and turn away from the defender and run towards goal? Or in a similar situation use the first touch from a long ball to flick the ball up with his heal and juggle and turn away from a defender? Maradona did the first one in a serie a game against fiorentina and the second one in a World Cup game against Hungary, or Belgium, I forget which.
There is another incident I remember at Napoli, in serie a or some cup game, near the end of his Napoli career (you could tell by his physique), he took down a long ball by spin turning away from a defender marking him with his first touch. I watched it on YouTube a long time ago but I don’t remember the match opponent and can’t find the video clip. If anyone can find that clip it would be appreciated, or a video clip of Ronaldinho or anyone else other than Maradona controlling a long pass by spin turning a defender with the first touch with perfect control and balance. Incidentally there’s another clip of Maradona doing a similar move at Sevilla, Vs Real Madrid in la liga. And you can find that one on YouTube easily. In many YouTube compilations of Ronaldinho I have seen him doing similar touches and turns as what I’ve described Maradona doing, but cannot remember many incidents where the ball was moving at a phenomenal speed as he controlled the ball.
Barcelona don't play long ball football I could say can you show me a video of Maradona doing 3 sombreros in a row whiist being pressured by two defenders? How about using his back to make a pass to a teammate when receiving a long ball? Or using his back to control a long ball and use just the right amount of force to knock it past the defender. Or how about Maradona showing fast footwork like Ronaldo did at 1:18 in this video I would say Ronaldinho is the most outrageous and magical footballer of all time, I'm annoyed how he wasted his career, he should have at least worked hard until the 2010 World Cup and won another 2 Ballon D'Ors. I will say that Maradona definitely had better close control but Messi is clearly the best of all time in this field, a level above Maradona. Physically Ronaldinho and Maradona were poles apart, one was 5ft 5 (165cm) and the other 6ft (182cm) so there will be things that one could do and the other couldn't.
You are comparing Milan to Napoli on talent? That’s like comparing current Newcastle to Man City and saying they were comparable.
It was actually Napoli who won the Scudetto before Milan so it's a bad comparison. If you had said Arsenal 2004 vs Chelsea 2005 then fair enough. In fact during Maradona's time in Serie A Milan won one Serie A and came second once, so they were not a dominant team like you are saying. Hellas Verona won Serie A in 1985 and Sampdoria in 1991 for the first time ever and never again. Are Mancini and Elkjaer all time greats, one man armies? It looks like this was the era for smaller unfancied teams to win Serie A. It was also the era of the 3 foreign players rule so you could not build dream teams like modern day Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Man City, Bayern Munich. The competition was more even.
Milan in 89 Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, Ancelotti, Donadoni, Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Albertini Which players playing for Napoli would have started for Milan?
Football doesn't work like that, this Milan team couldn't overcome Sampdoria the next season either. Napoli had quite a few Italian and Brazilian internationals in their team.
One other thing I forgot to mention is that Barcelona finally ended their 11 year La Liga drought immediately after selling Maradona to Napoli and they didn't replace him with a similar high profile attacker either. Not many people mention this when talking about his greatness. From what I'm seeing Maradona excelled where everything went through him and he had everything his own way. Hence why he had more success with Napoli and Argentina 86 even though Barcelona and Argentina 82 were better teams. So sticking him in that AC Milan team may not have got the best out of him and someone like Sacchi probably wouldn't tolerate his lifestyle anyway.
Anyone who really thinks Maradona was overrated has to be laughed off any serious football discussion. Really. Its a team game of 11 on 11, and every player needs to do their job. No team can win if its all about one player. The only time that has ever happened is teams with Maradona. For a reason.
So if you stuck Maradona in Venezuela or Pisa's team he would make them champions? Like I said Verona, Napoli and Sampdoria won Serie A in that era. None of them had ever won it before. No one is saying that Maradona wasn't a great player but should he be considered top 3 of all time? I say no.
So, all the players from that era that were amazed by Mardona's talent, heap praises on him b/c he was the best they had ever seen, Gary Lineker saying over-and-over that watching Maradona play was the only time he wanted to cheer for a player on the opposing side, we are all going to ignore that b/c someone who has never accomplished anything with the handle "reckless" is saying that Diego was overrated. . . All you keyboard jockeys that anonymously take shot at the Greats of the game make everyone laugh. I guess I'm loco. Maradona was voted player of the Century by fan around the globe, winning 53.4% of the votes over Pele who received 18.53% of the vote. But what? That makes the world wrong? right . . . .
Calm down, it's just a discussion, that's what this Forum is for, you're getting too emotional. You have your opinion, I have mine. Yes Maradona was magical and yes Napoli and Argentina would not have won without him but they were not average teams. The media and fans over exaggerate his feats by calling his teams poor. Would Verona have won without Elkjaer? Would Sampdoria have won without Mancini? Yes Gary Lineker said those things about Maradona, but football is not purely a ball juggling show. There are things that Ibrahimovic and Ribery can do with the ball that Cristiano Ronaldo can only dream of but that doesn't make them better players than him. What makes Maradona better than Pele? As I said before Maradona was just slightly more flashy and creative but in terms of effectiveness Pele was superior given his two footed ability, heading, shooting, speed and looking after his body. God knows what kinds of performance enhancing substances Maradona could have been on given how he passed drug tests up until 1994 despite being a heavy cocaine user.
They won the 1987 league title with an extremely low number of points (relative to the maximum avalaible). This was a weak-ish season.
It was the era when teams who had never won Serie A could win. Furthermore Napoli was a work in progress, strengthening year by year hence why it took Maradona 3 seasons to finally win Serie A.